Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments and blindprinting
height 140 mm × width 187 mm
Katsushika Hokusai
The Treasure Ship
Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan, 1799
Provenance
…; purchased from the dealer Hotei Japanese Prints, Leiden, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1987;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1991
Object number: RP-P-1991-629
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
Context
For more on the Seven Gods of Good Fortune or Luck, the Shichifukujin, a popular group of household deities, see RP-P-1962-331.
For further notes on Shibanoya Sanyo as a selector and/or publisher of volumes of kyoka poetry, see RP-P-1991-451 and as a designer of surimono, see RP-P-1995-301 and RP-P-1958-527.
The artist
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) first studied with Katsukawa Shunsho but later developed his own style. He was occasionally influenced by various other traditions, and designed thousands of calendar prints and surimono from 1787 until about 1810. His surimono production diminished in the 1810s but he resumed his former output between 1321 and 1825. He is best known for his landscape prints of the 1830s.
Entry
A treasure ship made of a bamboo basket used for gathering herbs, mushrooms and the like, the mast consisting of a ruler, the calligraphy on the sail reading 'gold' (kin?), the paper folder containing chopsticks inscribed with 'chopstick shop', ohashidokoro. Two fans at the stern of the ship. In the ship pots and several rolls of cloth. A kite with a painting of a crane flying overhead against a red sun, its bobbin lying beside the ship.
Popular belief holds that the Seven Gods of Fortune of Japan sail into the harbour on New Year's Day aboard the 'Treasure Ship', Takarabune. Thus, these gods are normally depicted as the passengers in traditional images of the Treasure Ship. Such images were placed under one's pillow on New Year's Eve to ensure a Lucky Dream of Mount Fuji, a falcon and eggplants (cf. RP-P-1958-270, for a representation of such a picture and a pillow, and RP-P-1991-651, for allusions to the First Lucky Dream, hatsuyume).
The rolls of cloth and the pots probably signify the treasures, takaramono, brought by the gods. The folded paper representing the boat's figurehead has an inscription explaining that it contains chopsticks, possibly made by one of the poets represented on this print.
The numerals for the long months of 1799, 1, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 11, appear in gold on one of the fans.
Three poems by Kasugano Michikusa, Matsukaze Otonari and Sanyodo [Sanyo, later Tamashiba Sanyodo, Shibanoya Sanyo or also Kamon, studied with Shinratei Manzo, a judge of the Yomogawa from 1796, d. c. 1836].2
Issued by the poets
Signature reading: Sori aratame (changed his name to) Hokusai ga
Produced by the Shuchodo [Monoyana, the poet] Studio, seal reading: Shuchodo
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 91
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Katsushika Hokusai, The Treasure Ship, Japan, 1799', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.422441
(accessed 23 November 2024 04:00:07).