muséevirtuel @ mu

Seppo means "snow peaks", a thaw scene is expressed.
It is an original work of Koetsu.
His some works are specified to a national treasure or important cultural property.

*Hon'am Koetsu : Hon'ami Koetsu (1558-1637) was a Japanese craftsman, potter, lacquerer, and calligrapher, whose work is generally considered to have inspired the founding of the Rinpa school of painting. Koetsu was born into a family of swordsmiths who had served the Imperial court as well as the likes of Tokugawa Ieyasu and Oda Nobunaga, major warlords of the Sengoku period (1467-1603). His grandfather was counted as one of the "companions and advisors" of Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimasa. Koetsu's father, Hon'ami Koji ( -1603), received a regular stipend from the Maeda family, in payment for his services as a sword connoisseur. Koetsu would continue this relationship of his family with that of the Maeda, and with their domain in Kaga province; he would advise the Maeda on swords, paintings, and other art objects. Koetsu would meet many members of the art community through his connections with the Maeda, including tea master Kobori Enshu. Although trained as a swordsmith, Hon'ami became accomplished in pottery, lacquer, and ceramics as a result of his interest in Japanese tea ceremony, which had been revived and refined only a few decades earlier by Sen no Rikyu. In this art, he is regarded as one of the top pupils of Furuta Oribe and of the style known as Raku ware. In all of Koetsu's surviving correspondence, only one letter in fact concerns swords. He is believed to have passed on his professional obligations in this matter to his adopted son Kosa and grandson Koho. He was also an accomplished calligrapher, inspired as many of Japan's greatest calligraphers were, by the court writings of the Heian period. He came to be known as one of the Three Brushes of the Kan'ei Era. Though he created a number of works in this classical style, he also developed his own personal style of calligraphy, and taught it to many of his students. In 1615, he began an artist community northwest of Kyoto, in a place called Takagamine granted him by Tokugawa Ieyasu. Scholars disagree on whether this community was more focused on art or on religion, specifically Nichiren Buddhism, and whether this land grant was generous, or a form of exile. Nevertheless, it was here that he would develop his unique style of painting and design which would later develop into the Rinpa school. The retreat was called Taikyo-an, and was used for prayer meetings and meditation, in addition to its function as an artist colony. A number of important figures, including the historian Hayashi Razan, visited there towards the end of his life. After his death in 1637, the colony was disbanded and the land returned to the shogunate by his grandson. Ernest Fenollosa, one of the first American collectors and critics of Japanese art, is quoted as writing that Hon'ami is the only artist of what Fenollosa called the Early Modern period worthy of being compared to the earlier masters.