Dogs

The artist daringly combines a traditional painting subject, peonies, with a new theme, new western breeds of dogs. Though the artist has used features of the traditional painting style, he substitutes the dogs for lions, which traditionally appeared with peonies. The artist was said to own as many as fifty dogs as pets so that he could observe the animals. The result of his effort is obvious in this painting. This painting was exhibited at the museum’s inaugural “Tei-ten” imperial art academy exhibition, and was the first work in the collection of our museum.