Formerly attributed to Ikei Shūtoku - Hotei Admiring the Moon, probably 19th century

 

Formerly attributed to Ikei Shūtoku - Hotei Admiring the Moon, probably 19th century
Hanging scroll; ink on paper, 36 1/2 × 17 3/4 in. (92.7 × 45.1 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

This painting depicts Budai, a beloved, semi-historical Buddhist figure known as Hotei in Japan. Although the work was traditionally associated with an artist known as Ikei Shūtoku, purportedly a follower of the celebrated medieval ink painter Sesshū Tōyō, it is believed to have been made in the nineteenth century. This late work entered The Met's collection in 1914 along with nearly two hundred other Japanese and Chinese artworks from the collection of Charles Stewart Smith (1832–1909), a Trustee of the Museum. Smith was primarily a collector of European paintings but also acquired many Japanese and Chinese works of art during the last two decades of his life, after he and his third wife honeymooned in Japan in 1892.