Tawaraya Sosetsu

Tawaraya Sosetsu was an early Edo-period Rinpa painter whose dates of birth and death are unknown. He was a successor to Tawaraya Sotatsu, said to be either his younger brother or his pupil, though this is not certain. While Sotatsu was alive, he is thought to have been one of the leading painters of the workshop.

After Sotatsu's death he inherited the workshop seal Inen and used it on his own works, so they are sometimes confused with Sotatsu's. In 1639 (Kan'ei 16) he painted four of the eight cedar-door paintings at Yoju-ji. He became a hokkyo around 1642 (Kan'ei 19), and from 1643 (Kan'ei 20) to around the beginning of the Shoho era he is said to have gone down to Kanazawa and become an official painter to the Maeda family.

In Kanazawa, Sosetsu's successors produced many screens of flowers and grasses bearing the Inen seal. They were so beloved that a Tawaraya flowers-and-grasses screen was said to be carried as part of a bride's trousseau. Autumn Grasses screens is an Important Cultural Property, a pair of six-panel screens held by the Tokyo National Museum.