Five Serving Dishes with persimmon design, Artist Unknown, Japanese, Momoyama-Edo period, 1600–1620s. Mino ware, green oribe type, Motoyashiki kiln; stoneware with underglaze iron-oxide design and copper-green glaze. Overall: 9.8 x 5.7 x 6.4 cm (3 7/8 x 2 1/4 x 2 1/2 in.) Photography © John C. Weber and John Bigelow Taylor. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

BOSTON, MA.-A passion for collecting that began with baseball cards when he was a boy, followed by Rembrandt etchings as a young man, has evolved into one of the finest private holdings of Japanese art outside of Japan—Dr. John C. Weber’s collection of masterworks from the 12th to 20th century. Approximately 80 objects, including ceramic and lacquer pieces, screens, scrolls, kimonos, and other textiles, will be featured in an exhibition titled Arts of Japan: The John C. Weber Collection, on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), through January 13, 2008.
Weber’s interest in Japanese art began more than a decade ago. Already a collector of Chinese artifacts (as well as European medieval art), in 1996 he purchased his first Japanese work, a fan painting by Kitagawa Utamaro (?−1806) depicting the celebrated courtesan Hanaogi playing a koto. Since then, Weber has bought many other ukiyo-e paintings, among them Hishikawa Moronobu’s seminal handscroll, A Visit to the Yoshiwara (c. 1673–84). Ukiyo-e is the term used to describe the colorful woodblock prints and delicate paintings from the “floating world” of pleasurable pursuits—the theaters and brothels of Edo (now modern-day Tokyo)—during the 17th through 19th centuries. Ukiyo-e paintings also are featured in a concurrent MFA exhibition, Drama and Desire: Japanese Paintings from the Floating World 1690–1850, which showcases masterpieces from the Museum’s own ukiyo-e collection including a pair of rare screens also by Moronobu. Drama and Desire runs August 28 through December 16, 2007, in the Museum’s Torf Gallery. Lire la suite http://www.artdaily.com/section/news/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=21994