It has been told that there were seven intellectuals withdrawing from the official life and gathering in bamboo forests to purse the artistic and philosophical freedom during the Wei and Jin dynasties in China. Their renunciation of desire and pursuit of pure freedom was seen as the ideal of humanity.

The pictorial subject “Seven Sages in the Bamboo Grove,” based on the anecdote above, began to be painted in China from the 4th century onwards, and in Japan from the late Muromachi period onwards, they were often depicted in screen paintings as a warning for desires.

As all four of the sages in this painting are facing left, it is thought that they were originally intended to form a pair with a painting depicting three of them facing right.

On the lower left of the scroll there is a vermilion vase-shaped mark that can be read as “Riko.”