Ishiyama-san was our wonderful cook while we lived in Okinawa, Japan from1953 to 1955. I’m not sure if this belongs with the paintings or the sketches as it was painted with sumi ink but definitely not in the normal style of her other Japanese sumi works. I’ve included it here to go along with a few other sketches from that time period.

My mother was very fond of this painting and it always found a place on her walls, usually in the dining room or near her dining table. I think it shows remarkable dimensionality and a mastery of the medium. Unfortunately the rice paper this was created on is showing it’s 70 years of age and beginning to yellow noticeably, I’ve slightly corrected for this so that it looks a little closer to how it did when it was created and how I recall it looking when we moved back to England.

Below an example of one of the birthday cakes he made.