Kanō Tsunenobu
Early to mid-Edo period (17th-18th century)
Donated by the Homma family
Kanō Tsunenobu (1636–1713) was the son of Naonobu, the nephew of Kanō Tan’y, and an official painter for the Tokugawa shogunate.
The middle hanging scroll depicts King Wen of Zhou—posthumously honored as King and founder of the Zhou Dynasty—who led the campaign to crush the Kingdom of Shang. The left scroll depicts the phoenix and the right scroll depicts the qilin, a Chinese mythological hooved chimerical creature. Along with the dragon and the turtle, they are divine creatures in Chinese mythology thought to bring good fortune.
This triptych came to the Homma family from the Maeda family of the Kaga domain, via the wealthy Sakata merchant Futaki Yosuke. It was displayed on the second floor of the Seienkaku residence when Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu, and Nobuhito, Prince Takamatsu—the sons of Emperor Taishō on 8 August 1921.