Two Entertainers Strolling on the New Year

Attributed to Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (1760-1849) · ca. 1798-1801

This painting portrays a man and a boy strolling with a small dog near an arrangement of pine and bamboo, decorations set up for the New Year. The unsigned painting was attributed to Hokusai when Charles Lang Freer purchased it in 1902 from the English collector Michael Tomkinson (1841-1921). Research of Hokusai's paintings has focused on signed works, but similarities between this unsigned one and other early works have again raised the possibility that this painting is by Hokusai. However, some scholars maintain that one of Hokusai's many pupils painted this work.