Flowers and Grasses, mid-1600s. Kitagawa Sōsetsu (Japanese, active 1639-50). One of a pair of six-panel folding screens; ink and color on paper; image: 153.7 x 329.2 cm (60 1/2 x 129 5/8 in.); including mounting: 170.2 x 348.4 cm (67 x 137 3/16 in.). Kitagawa Ssetsu painted for the Maeda family, powerful rulers of what is present-day Ishikawa Prefecture on the central northern coast of Honsh, Japan’s main island. Screens served as room dividers and backdrops in Maeda grand residences. This composition is considered one of the artist’s masterpieces. Kitagawa Ssetsu is thought to have been a student of Tawaraya Ssetsu, who was in turn the student of Tawaraya Statsu, the Kyoto-based master painter regarded as the creator of the style that came to be known as Rinpa. By selecting a painter of this lineage, the Maeda family consciously connected their aesthetics to those of the imperial capital as a means of proclaiming their elevated status.