What can you tell me about a painting on silk titled 'The Golden
Horse' by an artist known on the painting only as 'Hasegawa'? It is
signed in Japenese charecters.

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Clarification of Question by lakelady-ga on 30 Mar 2004 06:33 PST

Attn: Alan Kali re.Hasegawa painting; Yes, I own the original but
don't think it is by the artist you mentioned because of the
signature; however the horse in the example in the link you provided
looks very similar. I only paid $1500 for it; I was thinking it was
probably painted in the 1940's. Is there anyway that I can send you a
photo of it?

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Clarification of Question by lakelady-ga on 30 Mar 2004 19:14 PST

There is a sticker on the back from the gallery where it was purchased
that gives the title of the piece and the artist last name and that it
is original art.. the logo on the sticker says "Art Lover" although
that is not the gallery where I purchased it; it came from an estate
sale.  Thank you for all of your help..I will try to get a picture on
line. One more thing; the field of the painting is gold and the horse
itself is dark gray.

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Clarification of Question by lakelady-ga on 21 Apr 2004 15:29 PDT

As I stated earier, the signature on the painting is in Jap.
charecters; on the back is a sticker that only gives his surname. The
charecters you provided don't look like the ones on my painting. I
wish I could provide the ones here that are on my painting but am
unable to do so.

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Clarification of Question by lakelady-ga on 21 Apr 2004 15:33 PDT

There is no English on the painting, only the sicker on the back that
gives the artist surname in English and the name of the painting "The
Golden Horse". No first name is given; that is all the information
that I have.

This might be Hasegawa Tohaku (1539-1610) who studied Chinese art and
adapted it to Japanese silk screen painting during what is known as
the Momoyama period. A sample of his signature is shown in the art
signature archive at <a
href=http://www.artarchiv.net/doku/sig/66.jpg>artarchiv.net</a> so you
can compare it against the work.
<p>
It was initially thought that Tohaku painted mostly with monochrome
ink, but an reananlysis in the early twentieth century attributed
additional works to him. An example can be seen at <a
href=http://www.kyohaku.go.jp/tokuten/kitano/hp10-7e.htm>The Kyoto
National Museum</a>.
<p>
Tohaku is considered one of the most important Japanese painters, but
his work has only recently begun to be well known in the west. I have
heard that one of his paintings is in the permanent collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
<p>
I cannot find the particular work you mention, but Tohaku was a fairly
prolific painter, and it may be a lesser known work. What is your
source? Do you have the original?

Alan Kali

Lakelady,

I don't really know how to give you my email address here without
getting spammed out of existence. It may be better anyway if you post
the image to the web and put a link here. That way you will get the
benefit of many eyes looking for the answer.

It would be nice if Google Answers allowed you to post a small image
along with your query to aid in the identification of art (hint, hint
Google). Since they do not, you could post it on the free web page
your Internet service provider is likely to have given you, or use the
free image hosting service at http://photoshop.superdownloads.net/.
Superdownloads is a simple and self-explanatory system, and you do not
need to create an account, but you should remember to keep the image
under 100k, name it something unique BEFORE you try to post it, and
then put the link here right away (Superdownloads free images don't
stay up for very long, so you may have to go through the process more
than once).

I suspect that posting the image is the only way to get further along
with this. If the painting is in the style of Hasegawa Tohaku as you
suggest, that probably rules out the painting being by Sadanobu
Hasegawa III, who is in the correct period (late nineteenth to
mid-twentieth century) but had a very, very different style from
Tohaku. Sadanobu III used much brighter colours for the most part, and
his style was recognizably modern compared with Tohaku.

The most likely thing at this point seems to be a modern reproduction
of a Tohaku. I am curious about how you know that the painting is
called "The Golden Horse" and is by "Hazegawa". If there are english
characters on the painting, then it would almost certainly be a recent
reproduction of an original Tohaku. If, on the other hand, the
notation is elsewhere (on the back? in documentation that came with
the painting?) there may be many other explanations.

Alan Kali

Could you give me the whole name of that artist?Coz hasegawa's just a surname.
??? is his name in Japanese.