I absolutely love the way Nagasawa Rosetsu paints animals.

Rosetsu’s animals are always charming, and they put a smile on my face.
I don’t find the tiger in the work “Tiger” fearsome, rather I find it almost cute and cartoon-like, and the dog in “White Elephant and Black Bull” appears to sit with an innocent comical face.

It seems that Rosetsu liked to draw sparrows often. In this work, not only are the sparrows cute, you can see how Rosetsu brings his own style and personality to them.

What attracts me the most about this work is the relationship between the artwork and the mounting.
As they cross through the hands of many, the mounting is tailored and altered numerous times. In this work, the mounting is made from a very impressive hand-drawn sarasa (the Japanese term for chintz).
Sarasa is a cotton fabric of Indian origin that spread all over the world during the Age of Discovery (early 15th to 17th century). In Japan, its exotic patterns, and colors were seen as charming, and it was used for tea utensils and clothes from the Muromachi period (1336 to 1573) onwards. Imports would have been valuable at the time, so it must have been popular among the fashionistas of that era.
This sarasa appears to be somewhat new, but in choosing such a unique fabric, a hand-drawn chintz, I imagine the owner of this hanging scroll must have been stylish and selective.
The hanging scroll looks almost like a view from a window at a home with beautiful western-style wallpaper.

This work has taught me how a mounting can change how much you enjoy a work.

Mademoiselle Yulia
Mademoiselle Yulia rose to prominence as a DJ and singer in her teens. In recent years, she has grown widely active as a kimono stylist, model, columnist, awards judge, and has become the face of numerous global campaigns of widely known brands. Yulia graduated from Kyoto University of the Arts in 2020 and styled the visual campaign for the Victoria & Albert Museum’s exhibition, Kimono -Kyoto to Catwalk-.
https://yulia.tokyo/