I recently went to the Miho Museum in Japan, where two sets of painted mosaic panels. Both sets, titled Flowers, Trees, Animals: Life, are supposedly painted by the same Japanese artist, Itō Jakuchū (1716-1800), yet one set looks distinctly suspicious when compared to the other, like Ecce Homo suspicious.

The first set contains common animals such as ducks, deer, etc. as well as classically mythical animals such as kirins and phoenixes. The artist paints the mosaics in a gradated style to create texture, depth and well rounded forms. Overall, it seemed legitimate.

The second set was exhibited opposite the original. It's painted in a completely different style yet bears similar composition to the first set. At first glance, the colours are completely flat, lacking the same gradients and texture - it looks like a bad imitation of the first set. On closer inspection the animal forms appear crude and inconsistent when compared to the level of care and detail in the first set.

But most strikingly, here, we can see animals like the cassowary and what appears to be a sulphur-crested cockatoo, both of which are native to Australia and New Guinea. This one puts me off the most as the period this was supposedly painted was in the early years, if not entirely before, the European colonisation of Australia and New Guinea. It's also at least 50 years before the ending of Japan's isolationism. The only exception to this may be Dutch traders who might have introduced these animals to Japan but I find that dubious.

Could these animals have really existed in 18th Century Japan for Jakuchu to paint? Or is it just a fake?

According to this article, the owner Joe Price is convinced they're legitimate, but others think they may have been painted in the 19th Century to simulate Jakuchu's style.

EDIT: formatting