Matsuzawa Magohachi

"Morning Glories" (asagao). One of a pair of folding screens paintings by Suzuki Kiitsu, previously owned by Matsuzawa. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Acc. no. 54.69.1,2.

Matsuzawa Magohachi was the operator of the Osaka-ya, a wax wholesaler based at Nihonbashi in Edo. He is known as an art collector, and is sometimes said to have been perhaps the wealthiest merchant in all of Edo at that time.

Matsuzawa was a patron of the Rinpa painter Suzuki Kiitsu, and several of the most celebrated Kiitsu works today, including a pair of screens of morning glories (asagao) owned by the Metropolitan Museum, and one of "Mountain Streams in Spring and Autumn" owned by the Nezu Museum, were previously in Matsuzawa's collection.

References

• Gallery labels, Nezu Museum, May 2017.