Portrait of Hippocrates

This is ink and light color on silk, 110.3 cm high and 41.7 cm wide, designated an Important Art Object. It was painted by the Edo-period literati painter Watanabe Kazan and was handed down in the Asai family, which had ties with Kazan.

It depicts the bust of Hippocrates, revered as the founding father of Western medicine, realistically with well-judged shading. It also conveys Kazan's side as a scholar of Western learning.

It is regarded as valuable as a work symbolizing the spread of learning in the Edo period, Western studies in particular. Its provenance through the Asai family also reflects Kazan's circle of acquaintances. In the image, the face of a bearded man is drawn inside an oval frame, with what appear to be signature characters beneath it.