Japanese School Plum Blossom with Sparrow Bird

Japanese Bird-and-Flower Paintings c.1847

This painting is one of a group that were housed in an envelope indicating a date of 1847. The style is that of the late Edo period (1603–1868) nanga style, which flourished among artists who considered themselves literati, or intellectuals, and shared an admiration for traditional Chinese culture. The Chinese bird-and-flower painter Yun Shou-ping (1633–1690) was particularly revered by such Japanese artists.

The collection comes with the interesting provenance of Robert Byron (1905–1941), travel writer and art historian. Byron is best known for his travelogue 'The Road to Oxiana', documenting his travels in the Middle East but written whilst he was living in Beijing in 1835–6. Byron was an aesthete and member of the so-called Bright Young Things of London between the wars; in Beijing he was visiting his friend (and unrequited love) Desmond Parsons (1910–1937), as well as his Eton & Oxford contemporary Harold Acton (1904–1994) who was living there at the time. Byron's great desire was to go to Japan, and his further travels did include Japan, along with America, Russia and Siberia. He met an untimely death in 1941 during World War II when the ship he was on was torpedoed. Byron's extensive collection of travel photographs is now in the British Museum.