Elizabeth by Hiroshi Furuyoshi
A quiet, contemplative moment unfolds in Elizabeth, Hiroshi Furuyoshi’s captivating portrait of a young girl seated on a bench, dressed in pure white and gently cradling a bouquet of flowers across her lap. Behind her looms a remarkable backdrop: a fragment of the famed Battle of Roncevaux Pass tapestry, woven in Tournai between 1450 and 1475 and now housed at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. This historic Flemish tapestry, originally part of a grand narrative cycle chronicling the tales of Charlemagne, adds an extraordinary layer of visual and thematic complexity. It juxtaposed the innocence and stillness of childhood with the chaos and heroism of medieval battle.
Furuyoshi’s meticulous brushwork and subtle handling of light lend a dreamlike serenity to the composition. Elizabeth’s calm expression and delicate posture contrast poignantly with the swirling drama depicted behind her, echoing the timeless dance between youth and history, peace and conflict.
About the Artist
Born in Hiroshima in 1959, Hiroshi Furuyoshi was raised amid history and tradition. His family’s antiques shop served as his first gallery, filled with Japanese paintings, calligraphy, and curiosities that fired his imagination from an early age. As a child, he was equally enchanted by manga and the masterpieces of Western art. He pored over art books and discovered treasures like The Red Boy by Sir Thomas Lawrence, an image that ignited his desire to master oil painting.
Though formal art school in Kyoto offered little support for classical realism, Furuyoshi sought out traditional training under realist master Toshiro Aoki, who introduced him to seventeenth-century Dutch techniques. This grounding in Old Master approaches would shape Furuyoshi’s distinct blend of Eastern refinement and Western tradition.
Initially exhibiting miniature canvases in Tokyo during the 1980s, Furuyoshi gained early acclaim. But it was his unexpected breakout in the international auction market that brought him to global attention. His painting Julien, a cabinet of curiosities rendered in exacting detail, fetched nearly six times its estimate in London in 2010. Subsequent works, including Maya and Adelaide, followed with even greater success.
Now based in Kyoto, Furuyoshi continues to build an international following for his intimately scaled, richly detailed compositions—each a portal to another world. In Elizabeth, he invites us to consider the elegant tension between past and present, imagination and memory, history and the moment.
Hiroshi Furuyoshi Elizabeth Oil on canvas on board 23.875 x 19.675 inches Framed: 34.5 x 27 inches Signed $50,000.00