A World of Edo Art
Shibata Zeshin (1807–1891) was a painter who often painted with lacquer during the transition from the Edo to the Meiji period. His father was a sculptor and at age eleven, Zeshin was apprenticed to a lacquer craftsman and later trained in the Maruyama-Shijō School. Zeshin was an accomplished printmaker and painter but is primarily celebrated for his extraordinary mastery of urushi, traditional Japanese lacquer, a demanding medium notoriously difficult to work with. After the Edo period, Zeshin became one of the most well-known Japanese artists outside Japan, ranking with Hokusai and Hiroshige in terms of prestige, especially in France. He served as Japan's official representative at international exhibitions in Vienna and Philadelphia.
