Sadatsuna Tokuei
The Taima mandara
A hanging. Ink, colours, gofun and gold on fabric. Signed edokoro sakon Sadatsuna and sealed Edokoro. Wooden box.
At the centre of this representation of the Pure Land of the West, Amida is seated in meditation on a lotus throne. He is flanked by the Bodhisattvas Kannon and Seishi and surrounded by other Bodhisattvas of lower rank. They sit on a terrace built into a lotus pond with more deities seated on lotus flowers and with the faithful who entered the Pure Land now being reborn from the lotus flowers as children. Representations of the story of king Ajatasaru and his mother surround the central panel.
82.5 cm x 74 cm
The painting is a copy of a large Chinese embroidered representation of the Pure Land dated to the 8th century which came to Japan and is housed in the Taimadera in Nara. It exists in many formats and has been reproduced widely as woodblock print.
What makes this painting exceptional is the fact that it is signed. Sakon Sadatsuna 左近貞綱 is known by his numerous portraits of priest and has painted a number of Buddhist subjects. It seems that only one other painting of the Taima mandara (118,2 x 99 cm) is preserved in a Japanese private collection (Higuchi, p. 14). Sadatsuna used various signatures and titles. He signed with the edokoro sakon title on paintings dated between 1664 and 1676 (Higuchi, p. 12-14).
Provenance
Private collection, acquired in the 1970s
Literature
Graham, Patricia J. Faith and Power in Japanese Buddhist Art 1600-2005 Honolulu 2007
Higuchi Tomoyuki, Ebusshi Tokuo, Sadatsuna no shozo-ga seisaku ni tuite, in: Sendai-shi Hakubutsukan chosa kenkyu hokoku, no. 25, 2005, pp. 1-21.
Kadowaki Mutsumi, Kinsei ebusshi (Tokuetsu, Tokuo, Sadatsuna [Tokuei]) no shozo-ga seisaku, in: Kajima Bijutsu Zaidan nenpo, no. 32, 2014, pp. 460-469.