TAIKAN MONJU (1765 – 1842) Daruma on a Reed Edo period, 18th / 19th Century A Japanese hanging scroll painting, kakejiku, ink on paper, depicting the Buddhist monk wrapped in his cloak, seated on a reed and gazing into the distance, inscribed with a poem reading Spread out on reeds, cooling off in the evening, sealed and signed, together with the 1976 '400 Years of Zen Painting' exhibition catalogue 48cm high, 40cm long (2) - PROVENANCE: English Private Collection of Zenga - EXHIBITED: 400 Years of Zen Painting, curated by Shirley Day in conjunction with Barling of Mount Street, 1976, cat. no. 21 For a very similar scroll painting of Daruma by Hakuin Ekaku (1686 – 1769) using the same poem see the collection of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art, accession no FSC-PA-191. Taikan Monju was a pupil of Hakuin's student Tōrei and the founder of a monk's hall in Nanzenji in Kyoto. In the current painting, he relies on the old master in the subject and the chosen poem playing on the pun yoshiashi meaning both 'reeds' and 'good and evil'.