Kojin Kudo - Nesting at Dawn (暁の巣ごもり)

A red-crowned crane folds itself down into the reeds at daybreak. Kojin Kudo builds the scene almost entirely from mass and atmosphere rather than outline: the bird is one luminous curve of shell white, set against an amber sky that cools into blue-green as it reaches the water. White blossoms open at the left, sharp green leaves cut across the right, and beneath the crane a pale reflection dissolves into the shallows, the one passage where the painting lets a real bird drift toward something dreamed.

Kudo was born in Hirosaki, Aomori in 1915 and painted for eight decades. He took his subjects from the small life of the northern countryside, grasses, insects, birds and fallen leaves, and treated them not as natural history but as a poetry of living things. He liked to compare his own progress to that of a snail and named his studio after one; that studio name is printed at the foot of the label on the reverse of this frame.

For a cabinet-scale work the authentication here is unusually complete. The painting itself carries the artist's brushed ink signature with his gold square seal directly beneath it, at the lower right of the composition. Turn the picture over and the original paper label is still in place at the upper right of the backing board, protected under its tissue overlay, bearing the title, the same brushed signature and a red seal. Front and reverse corroborate one another, and the work is presented in its original gold frame with a woven brown mount.