Eighteen Rakan

This long handscroll features a ragtag crew of misfits, some riding turtles or catfish, and often with quite unkempt appearances. They are the devout and miraculous, but eccentric followers of the Buddha known as Rakan (or Arhat in Sanskrit). This work was painted in the tradition of the late Ming-dynasty Chinese painter Wu Bin (ca. 1550–1621), whose works or those of his followers might have found their way to Nagasaki, where local painters took up Wu’s archaic figural style.