46
Artist
Ōbaku Mokuan (Mokuan Shōtō)Japanese, 1611–1684
Japanese
Hotei
17th century
Hanging scroll; ink on paper
Image: 44 1/8 × 13 1/8 in. (112.1 × 33.3 cm)
Scroll: 75 3/4 × 16 × 1 in. (192.4 × 40.6 × 2.5 cm)
Storage box: 16 3/4 × 2 1/2 × 2 1/2 in. (42.5 × 6.4 × 6.4 cm)
The Gitter-Yelen Collection, museum purchase funded by the Brown Foundation Accessions Endowment Fund
2021.264
ProvenanceResearch OngoingŌbaku Mokuan (or Muan Xingtao, in Chinese) was a Chinese monk and the second patriarch of the Ōbaku sect of Zen Buddhism. He immigrated to Japan in the mid-seventeenth century, becoming the head of a temple in Uji, near Kyoto. He was principally known for his calligraphic works; paintings with figures, such as this one of Hotei at rest next to his sack, are rare within his oeuvre.
—Bradley Bailey