(c) 2018 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

White Fox

painter Shimomura Kanzan (Wakayama, 1873 - 1930, Yokohama)

Dateabout 1913

Place MadeJapan, East Asia

MediumInk and color on paper

Dimensions29 x 16 cm (11 7/16 x 6 5/16 in.)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Accession numberP3n20

eMuseum ID721288

Previous NumberTEMP Case 9a.1, Okakura 3

EmbARK ObjectID13345

TMS Source ID2311

Last Updated8/9/24

Status

Not on view

Web CommentaryShimomura Kanzan was an important modern painter who was colleagues in Japan with Okakura Kakuzō (1862-1913). Okakura was a close friend of Isabella Stewart Gardner and wrote an opera libretto titled, “The White Fox,” which he dedicated to Gardner. After Okakura Kakuzō’s death, Okakura Yoshisaburo (1868-1936), the younger brother of Okakura Kakuzō, gave this watercolor by Shimomura to Gardner.

BibliographyNotesAlan Chong and Noriko Murai. Journeys East: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Asia. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2009), p. 83, fig. 11.
Talia Andrei, "Isabella's Reliquary of Friendship: Her Bond with Okakura Kakuzō," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 18 October 2022, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/isabellas-reliquary-friendship-her-bond-okakura-kakuzo
Adam Haliburton, "The Elusive White Fox by Okakura Kakuzō," Inside the Collection (blog), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 19 December 2023, https://www.gardnermuseum.org/blog/elusive-white-fox-okakura-kakuzo

ProvenanceNotesGift from the Japanese scholar Okakura Yoshisaburo (1868-1936) to Isabella Stewart Gardner on 5 February 1914, shortly after the death of his brother the Japanese art historian and philosopher Okakura Kakuzo (1862-1913).