A calligraphy work by Kawakami Fuhaku cut to mimic the full moon rising through a field of autumn grasses painted directly on the mounting by an artist named Bunkin dating from the later Edo period. Ink on paper on a field of momi-gami paper hand painted with autumnal imagery signed Bunkin terminating in wooden rollers turned to intimate bamboo nodules. The scroll is 58.3 x 121 cm (23 x 47-1/2 inches) and is in excellent condition, completely restored using the original materials.
Kawakami Fuhaku (1719-1807) was born the second son of Kawakami Rokudayu, a vassal of the Mizuno family of the Kii-Shingu domain. He became an apprentice of Nyoshinsai, the seventh generation of Omote-senke tea ceremony school in Kyoto, and participated in the establishment of the seven tea ceremony procedures (Practice methods established to cultivate the spirit and techniques of the tea ceremony). In 1750 he moved to Edo (present-day Tokyo) in response to Nyoshinsai’s wish to spread the Senke tea ceremony in Edo. Later, as the Senke tea ceremony by Fuhaku spread in Edo, with Tanuma Okitsugu as well as the feudal lords Shimazu and Mori becoming initiated, Fuhaku established the Edo-Senke from the Omote-senke school. In 1807, at the age of 89, he died at the Renge-an hermitage in the Mizuno family’s residence in Edo, which had been a retirement home for the Mizuno family.
