Collection Online as of June 1, 2023

Autumn Evening with Full Moon on Musashino Plain

early 1600s

Part of a set. See all set records

Japan, Edo period

(1615-1868)

One of a pair of six-fold screens; ink, color, and gold and silver foil on gilded paper

Image: 170.2 x 346.7 cm (67 x 136 1/2 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 2000.4.2

Location

not on view

Description

Tall grasses and autumn flowers reach out of thick green undergrowth in this depiction of the plain of Musashi, a site famous from classical Japanese poetry. A silver disc, now tarnished, represents the full moon. Flecks of cut-gold foil in the sky evoke the day’s passage into night. Once a wilderness with a vast horizon, Musashi is now densely populated.

Provenance

?-2000

(Suzanne Mitchell Asian Fine Arts, New York, NY, ?-2000, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)

2000-

The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, 2000-present

Citations

Cunningham, Michael R. "Reverie on a pair of Japanese screens", The Magazine Antiques, vol. 160, no. 1, July 2001: 108-113. Reproduced: p. 109, pls. I, II

Cleveland Museum of Art, “Recent Acquisitions Press Release,” March 17, 2000, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. Mentioned: p. 2 archive.org

Cunningham, Michael. "Two Exhibitions of Japanese Painting." Orientations, vol 32, number 6 (June 2001): pp. 63-68. Reproduced: p. 68, fig. 7

Cuningham, Michael R. Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2001. Reproduced: pp. 26-27

Art of Japan: Paintings, Prints and Screens: Selected Articles from Orientations, 1984-2002. Hong Kong: Orientations Magazine, 2002. Reproduced: fig. 7, p. 464

Exhibition history

Main Asian Rotation (Gallery 121). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (July 13-November 10, 2004).

Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 15-September 16, 2001).

Japanese Gallery 235 Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (July 11, 2018-January 7, 2019).