FINE JAPANESE SHIJO BRUSH DRAWING ATTRIBUTED TO ONISHI CHINNEN 1792-1851 This superb unsigned drawing is unmistakably the work of the great Shijo master, Chinnen. Originally it would have formed part of a “gajo” folding album which would only have been signed on the last work in the album. It has been the fate of many such albums to be broken up and the drawings sold separately. Here we see the epitome of the Shijo style with its fluent and utterly confident brush strokes and its subtle colouring.The subject is a child in Chinese costume and hairstyle kneeling before a bunch of fruit. In Japan at the time, it was not unusual to dress children in Chinese style. 33cm x 29.5cm Professionally backed in Japan and has some worm damage at the right and left vertical edges, which does not encroach upon the painting. The work was published in the 1991 catalogue, Japanese Brush Drawings, of the London dealer, Richard Kruml (plate 10). Provenance: the late Brian Page (1938-2018), the well-known Oriental art and antiques dealer from Brighton.