Kanō Michinobu

Michinobu was born with the given name Shōzaburō (庄三郎)[1] on the 11th day of the 11th month of the year Kyōhō (20 December 1730) in Edo (modern Tokyo).

Jusen Harunobu (受川玄信) was adopted into the family to carry on the line but also fell sick and died in 1731 at age 17.

[2] He won the deep favour of the shōgun Tokugawa Ieharu (1737–86), to whom he remained close and who had Michinobu moved from his workshop in Takegawa to a mansion in Kobikichō in central Edo.

His work was highly praised and was often judged the greatest since Kanō Tan'yū's, though writer Ueda Akinari stated he could not "detect much to admire in him".

[3] The shogunate retainer Moriyama Takamori [ja] considered Michinobu "a good painter" who was "compromised" by his ambitions and self-promotion.