Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers, 17th century, Kano Tan'y?, Japanese, 1602 - 1674, 1 7/8 ¡Ñ 10 1/2 ¡Ñ 9 7/8 in. (4.76 ¡Ñ 26.67 ¡Ñ 25.08 cm)7 ¡Ñ 6 3/4 in. (17.78 ¡Ñ 17.15 cm) (sheet), Ink on silk; ink, gold, and mica on paper, Japan, 17th century, The Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers was a popular theme in East Asian painting and poetry. It celebrated the beauty of a region in southeast China where the two rivers converge. This album consists of eight paintings by Kano Tan¡¦y?, a central figure of the Edo-period Kano house. When he was only fifteen years old he was named goy? eshi, or painter-in-attendance, to the Tokugawa shoguns (military commanders) in the capital city of Edo. In order to produce a wide variety of paintings for the shogun, Tan¡¦y? had to be fluent in an array of Chinese and Japanese styles. The eight paintings in this album are in the 'splashed-ink' style of the Chinese painter Yujian (active late 1200s), who was beloved in Japan. Sometime after Tan¡¦y? completed these paintings, they were inserted into this album and paired with poems brushed on elegant paper decorated with various kinds of gold.