Portraits of Ike Taiga and His Calligraphies in Seal and Grass Styles

Tomioka Tessai is counted among the last of Japan’s Nanga painters. A student of poetry, Japanese philosophy, Confucianism, and a variety of painting styles in his youth, and briefly a Shinto priest, Tessai spent most of his life in Kyoto, where he was a leading figure in late Nanga circles. With his friends, the prominent Meiji-period Nanga Tanomura Chokunyū (1814–1907) and Taniguchi Aizen (1816–1899), Tessai helped establish the Japan Nanga Society (Nihon Nanga Kyōkai) in 1896. In the final year of his life, he was conferred with the title, “Artisan of the Imperial Household” (Teishitsu gigei’in).