Photo/Illutration A pair of folding screens painted by Ito Jakuchu, left, and Maruyama Okyo, right, on display in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward on Oct. 2 (Tatsuya Shimada)

A newly discovered pair of painted folding screens have been confirmed to be the joint work of renowned Edo Period artists Ito Jakuchu (1716-1800) and Maruyama Okyo (1733-1795).

The screens were unveiled at a news conference in Tokyo on Oct. 2 organized by the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, located in Osaka Prefecture. 

Jakuchu and Okyo were leading painters in the Kyoto art world at the time.

Folding screens are used to partition and decorate traditional Japanese rooms. The newly discovered pair of screens, “Chikkei zu byobu” (before 1790) by Jakuchu and “Bairi zu byobu” (1787) by Okyo, feature ink paintings on a gold background.

Yuji Yamashita, a professor of Japanese art history at Meiji Gakuin University, learned that the folding screens were in a private collection earlier this year and decided to investigate.

Based on the painting styles and artists’ signatures, Yamashita determined that the left panel, depicting bamboo and roosters, was painted by Jakuchu, while the right panel, depicting a plum tree and koi, was painted by Okyo.

“Both men painted the subjects they excelled at. I assume the client created the gold folding screens in advance and commissioned the artists to paint them,” Yamashita said.

Little is known about the relationship between the two artists. Jakuchu was a popular painter and Okyo valued realism and founded the Maruyama school of painting.

Yamashita said this collaborative work will be an important clue in learning about their relationship.

The folding screens will be on display at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Osaka, starting in June.

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