Untitled

Shibata Zeshin's Untitled (1879) reflects Meiji-era taste for bird-and-flower imagery, treating a single bird within a landscape setting. Executed in tempera on paper and mounted as a fan, the work was created in Japan and entered the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. Zeshin, best known as a lacquer artist and painter active across the late Edo and early Meiji periods, worked here in a compact format characteristic of Japanese album-leaf painting.

Created in 1879, this untitled work by Shibata Zeshin is a small fan painting rendered in tempera on paper. The composition features two birds perched on a slender branch set against a luminous gold background. Though modest in size, the piece exemplifies the artist’s skill in integrating everyday objects with fine painting techniques.

Zeshin employed tempera, mixing pigment with a glue binder, and applied genuine gold leaf that had been finely ground and combined with the same adhesive. This method yields a radiant, reflective surface that has retained its sheen for more than a century. The delicate rendering of feathers demonstrates the artist’s mastery of lightness within the medium.