ZESHIN

The Catherine and Thomas Edson Collection

Sebastian Izzard

Shibata Zeshin (1807-1891) was one of the most unusual Japanese artists of the 19th century in that he achieved almost equal fame as a painter and a lacquerer, and for the host of new lacquer techniques he devised. He was an unparalleled master during the two eras that most define Japan to Western collectors, the Edo and the Meiji. Zeshin provided works to the royal family of Japan for many years, and in 1890 he was named “Imperial Household Artist.” Over the past decade, Japanese art collectors and San Antonio natives Catherine and Thomas Edson have built the largest and finest privately held collection of his work in the US. This exhibition, held at the San Antonio Museum of Art in 2007, includes 54 masterworks from the Edson collection, and features objects that boast Zeshin’s signature surface designs, unusual netsukes, surprising and whimsical inros, and lacquer paintings on scroll – a technique Zeshin invented that has never been repeated.

Price: US$38.50