Watanabe Shusen (1736-1824)

Shusen was a Nagasaki painter working in the Chinese style. He was a pupil of the Nagasaki painters Ishizaki Gensho and Gentoku. After the death of Watanabe Shusai, who had adopted him, he inherited the title of Chinese painting expert (kara-e mekiki). He was known for his paintings of tigers.

For another tiger painting by Shusen, see Chiba City Museum of Art, ed., Nanpinha dairyuko: Edo no ikoku shumi/The Nanpin School: The Fascination with the Exotic in Edo-period painting (Chiba: Chiba City Museum of Art, 2001), pl. 24.