六柿图

Muqi painted this in China in the 13th century, a Chan Buddhist monk working quickly in ink on paper. Six pieces of fruit sit on an empty ground, some dark, some barely touched. In China his loose, spontaneous manner was not always admired, and a small ink sketch like this might easily have been lost. Instead it crossed to Japan, where collectors prized it and brought it out at tea gatherings, and in the early 1600s it was given to the Juko-in, a subtemple of Daitoku-ji in Kyoto. Much of what the West now calls the spirit of Zen was read into these persimmons long after they were painted. The scroll stayed at the temple, almost never shown, until it left Japan for the first time in 2023.