A fan leaf

A fan leaf, Namban Art, paper, gilt and polychrome decoration "Parade with Namban figures", nippo-portuguese Momoyama period - (1573-1615)/Edo period (1615-1868), minor faults on the pictorial layer. Notes: Provenance: private collection, Lisbon. Purchased from Pedro Aguiar Branco, originating from a private British collection. The ogi, or folding fan, originated and evolved in Japan, though its exact beginnings remain uncertain. By the late tenth century, folding fans were being sent as tribute and gifts to China and the Korean peninsula, where they were recognized as distinct from the traditional flat fan (shan in Chinese) and referred to as ‘folding fans’ or ‘Japanese fans’. Over time, folding fans transcended their practical use in religious rituals (as objects of worship in Shinto and offerings in Buddhist practices) and daily life to become highly portable, versatile accessories, enjoyed by people in every echelon of Japanese society. During the Momoyama (1573-1615) and early Edo periods, ogi were not only practical tools for keeping cool but also served as status symbols for the samurai and upper classes. Of the two types of ogi, the present example belongs to a later type that emerged in the Heian period (794-1185), known as kamiogi, featuring a silk or paper fan leaf glued to a bamboo frame. During this early period, hiogi, made from overlapping thin strips of cypress wood tied together, were used in winter, while kamiogi were preferred during summer. This rare Namban folding fan leaf, though missing its original bamboo frame, has survived for its painted decoration. Originally folded into twenty-two segments, it depicts seven male figures in European attire, likely Portuguese. All of them wear loose, baggy breeches adapted by the Portuguese for the hot and humid Asian climate. Among them, five figures of higher social status are dressed in more refined courtly attire, complete with tall brimmed hats. The most important figure, protected by a red parasol carried by a servant - possibly a Black enslaved man - wears a doublet over a linen shirt with a projecting ruff, a short-sleeved jerkin, and a red cloak. He is flanked by two other similarly attired men, one gazes ahead, shielding his eyes to better see what lies ahead for the Portuguese entourage. Midway between two figures who had forged ahead, another servant carries a closed parasol. The poses of both the gazing nobleman and this last servant are stereotypical and can be found in contemporary Namban screens (nanban byobu) depicting the arrival of the Portuguese in Japan, such as the pair from around 1600-1610 in the Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis, Porto (inv. 864-865 Mob MNSR) - see Carneiro (2009). Painted over a leaf-gilded background, the figures are arranged across the fan leaf as if surrounded by clouds in the upper and lower registers, bordered by flowering trees and pine trees on the left and right sides, framing the composition. The figures and trees are painted in brightly coloured opaque ink with loose, cursive brushwork typical of this production. Namban or nanban-jin (literally, ‘Southern Barbarian’) is a Japanese term of Chinese origin referring to Portuguese and Spanish merchants, missionaries, and sailors who arrived in Japan in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Over time, the word ‘Namban’ became associated with lacquerware (nanban makie or nanban shitsugei) and other goods commissioned in Japan for domestic or export markets. These items reflect Western tastes and were often modelled after European prototypes, or included European iconography, such as depictions of Portuguese merchants, officials, and missionaries - see Impey, Jörg (2005), Curvelo (2010), and Canepa (2016). While Namban lacquerware for export has been studied and dated according to the different European consumers who commissioned them, mostly between the last decades of the sixteenth century and the mid-seventeenth century, Namban-themed objects made for the home market, such as the present fan, are more difficult to date. Unbound by the presence of European newcomers in Japan, the use of Namban themes in painted screens, folding fans, and other household implements remained fashionable for a longer period. Namban folding fans are extremely rare. One significant example, originally folded into nineteen segments (21.9 x 50.6 cm), belongs to the Kobe City Museum - see Tani, Sugase (1973), p. 63, cat. 13. Painted by Kano Soshu (1551-1601), who left his red seal mark over the leaf-gilded ground, the fan likely depicts the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Kyoto, a Japanese-style building consecrated by the Jesuits in 1575. Soshu belonged to the important Kano school of painting (Kano-ha), responsible for some of the most beautiful and historically significant Namban folding screens that have survived. The production of painted folding fans constituted a considerable part of the school’s output in the sixteenth century. Some of these fans, painted either in colourful pigments over gold or rendered in monochrome ink, were never folded but instead mounted into albums to be admired as paintings. Although our folding fan shares the same quick brushwork as Soshu’s fan in Kobe, the pigments used and the thicker, more opaque painting technique suggests a departure from the typical Kano style. It is likely that the demand for anything foreign, coupled with the cosmopolitan consumption of Namban-themed objects, prompted less refined workshops to produce this type of painted fan. Removed from the original depictions made by Kano painters in Nagasaki, who were eyewitness to the European newcomers, the figures painted on our fan are simplified and somewhat corrupted, resembling those depicted in lacquerware made for the Japanese market in the early seventeenth century. Examples include a writing box (8.7 x 20.7 x 4.0 cm) in the Kobe City Museum - see Tani, Sugase (1973), p. 95, cat. 44 - and a gunpowder-flask (15.7 x 13.0 x 6.5 cm) in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (inv. EA1983.243). Arriving around 1543, the Portuguese nanban-jin piqued the curiosity of the Japanese people, a fascination fully reflected in the present folding fan. Bibliography: Paula Carneiro, “Biombos Namban. Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis. Namban screens. Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis”, in Maria João Vasconcelos, Paula Carneiro (eds.), Biombos Namban. Namban Screens, Porto, Museu Nacional de Soares dos Reis, 2009, pp. 80-92; Teresa Canepa, Silk, Porcelain and Lacquer. China and Japan and their Trade with Western Europe and the New World, 1500-1644, Londres, Paul Holberton publishing, 2016; Alexandra Curvelo (ed.), Encomendas Namban. Os Portugueses no Japão da Idade Moderna (cat.), Lisboa, Fundação Oriente, 2010; Oliver Impey, Christiaan Jörg, Japanese Export Lacquer, 1580-1850, Amsterdam, Hotei Publishing, 2005; Tani Shin’ichi, Sugase Tadashi, Namban Art. A Loan Exhibition from Japanese Collections, Washington, International Exhibitions Foundation, 1973 Hugo Miguel Crespo, Agosto de 2024, Dim. - 20 x 44 cm