A simple request to examine a centuries-old artwork led to a stunning discovery: the paintings on “fusuma” sliding doors owned by a long-established family in northern Japan were deemed to be missing parts of a priceless set in the possession of the British Museum in London.

It turned out the scenes were from a single themed “piece” portraying Japan’s four respective seasons by the renowned Kano school of painting.

Quite how the set of paintings ended up on opposite sides of the world will probably never be known, although it seems likely it happened early in the Showa Era (1926-1989).

Putting the missing pieces together came down to the intuition of the academic summoned to examine the paintings, according to the education board of Nakadomari town in Aomori Prefecture, which announced the finding on Sept. 17.

A group of four painted sliding doors collectively titled “Kacho-zu” (Paintings of birds and flowers) are displayed at a Shimuan annex building that forms part of the Miyakoshi family estate in Nakadomari, located in the Tsugaru Peninsula of northern Aomori Prefecture.

Each of the panels measures 170 centimeters by 110 cm.

Masaharu Miyakoshi, the ninth head of the large landowner clan, is said to have purchased the screens when they were put up for sale in Tokyo around 1922.

It is believed the partitions were produced by a painter from the Kano school between the late Azuchi-Momoyama Period (1568-1600) and the early Edo Period (1603-1867).

Records show that the screen pictures were later donated by the Kujo family in today’s Kyoto Prefecture to Tanzanjinja shrine in what is currently Nara Prefecture.

In the summer of 2023, Yoshiya Yamashita, a former senior researcher at the Kyoto National Museum who is an expert on the Kano school style of painting, received an image of “Kacho-zu” in an email.

The photo’s sender, Arata Shimao, a former professor of Japanese art history at Gakushuin University in Tokyo, explained that Nakadomari town officials were “seeking expert advice because the artwork has long remained unexamined in detail.”

The municipality simply expected that Yamashita would assess the old-style sliding doors. But something caught Yamashita’s trained eye.

Checking the photo again, Yamashita quickly realized he had “encountered a similar work somewhere” before.

The set of four partitions captured in the image depict scenes of spring and summer from right to left. Like other paintings of the Kano school that are often adorned with gold foil, the works he inspected boasted characteristic fine gold and silver powder.

Yamashita perused a pictorial book from his collection of publications at home. He bought the book at the exhibition “Masterpieces of Japanese and Chinese Art from the British Museum,” which was held in 1987 at the Tokyo National Museum.

Leafing through the pages, Yamashita came to a photo of a group of four sliding doors from the British Museum collection that feature bird and flower paintings. Scenes of autumn and winter are depicted on them from right to left.

“The surfaces of both sets of doors are designed gorgeously in a similar style,” Yamashita said. “I figured they may form a single series of paintings to represent the flow of spring, summer, fall and winter.”

Yamashita and Shimao went to Nakadomari last October to compare the “Kacho-zu” in the Miyakoshi residence with an image of its presumed counterpart at the British Museum.

The pair confirmed that the screens are basically equal in size and the drawing style is identical, too.

A stream illustrated in the summer scene from the Miyakoshi home’s panels appears to run into the water depicted in the autumn section of the British Museum’s partitions. The same triple-dot pattern is used for their door-pulls to open and close the fusuma.

Yamashita concluded the two groups of painted doors are from the same artistic series.

“They were likely created by a skilled painter active in the Kano school from the closing days of the Azuchi-Momoyama Period through the early Edo Period,” Yamashita, 65, told a news conference held in Nakadomari on Sept 17.

Yamashita said it was impossible to name the artist responsible for the works given that he has “just found out they are part of the same series of paintings.” However, the fusuma in possession of the Miyakoshi family are thought to have been painted by the famed artist Kano Sanraku (1559-1635) himself.

The door paintings disappeared from the Tanzanjinja shrine in the chaotic aftermath of a decision taken early in the Meiji Era (1868-1912) to separate Shinto from Buddhism as the Japanese government began gearing up aggressively to embrace Shinto as the state religion.

The spring-summer set of paintings got separated from the autumn-winter group at the time. The former reached the Miyakoshi family on the Tsugaru Peninsula, while the latter is thought to have arrived at the British Museum between 1935 and 1936.

“These precious artifacts are significant in helping us to understand the history of Japanese artwork getting separated, although they are, of course, important for research on the paintings of the Kano school,” Yamashita said of the latest discovery.

The Shimuan is opened to the public each spring and autumn. The fall viewing this year started on Oct. 4 and runs through Nov. 10. The fusuma drawings are on display.

Shimao, 71, touched on future plans.

“My dream is to organize an exhibition showcasing both sets of fusuma paintings from Nakadomari and Britain at some point in the future,” he said.