Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments and blindprinting
height 128 mm × width 178 mm
Kikugawa Eishin
Dolls for the Dolls Festival
Japan, Japan, 1818
Inscriptions
-
stamped: lower right, in red ink, with seal of Hayashi Tadamasa
Provenance
…; the dealer or collection Hayashi Tadamasa (1853-1906) (L. 2971);...; purchased from the dealer Hotei Japanese Prints, Leiden, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1991;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1991
Object number: RP-P-1991-683
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
Context
The Five Annual Festivals, Gosekku, are a common theme in the Japanese print tradition. They are comprised of the New Year, Shogatsu, on the 1st Day of the First Month; the Girls Festival, Hina no matsuri, on the 3rd Day of the Third Month; the Boys Festival, Tango no sekku, on the 5th Day of the Fifth Month; the Weaver's Festival, Tanabata, on the 7th Day of the Seventh Month; and the Chrysanthemum Festival, Kiku no sekku, on the 9th Day of the Ninth Month.
The artist
Kikugawa Eishin is a follower of Kikugawa Eizan. He also used the name Horai.
Eishin is generally, and correctly, considered a pupil of Eizan2 sometimes also of Eisen. The Ukiyoe ruiko lists him as a pupil of Eizan. The confusion may be based on the fact that Kikugawa Eishin and Keisai Eisen worked together in the late 1810s on the kyokabon Collection of Kyoka as Picture Legends, Gasan kyokashu, for the Gogawa, with poetry selected by Rokujuen.3
Entry
Two dolls representing courtiers armed with bows and arrows seated upon their boxes, which are painted to resemble tiger skin. A red mat, still rolled up, behind the boxes.
Cherry Blossom Festival in the Third Month, Sakurazuki, from the series The Five Annual Festivals, Gosekku no uchi.
The mat and the dolls are part of the preparations for the Dolls Festival, Hina no matsuri, held on the 3rd Day of the Third Month, when it is customary to arrange a set of dolls in rows in the house. In this print, the festival is referred to by another common indication for the Third Month, the Cherry Blossom Month. The painted tiger skin is taken here as a reference to the zodiacal animal.
One poem by Shikyokan Gochiku Fushimaru [also known as Take no Fushimaru, a member of the Asakusagawa (also known as Tsubogawa)].4
Issued by an unidentified poetry club
Signature reading: Horai Eishin ga
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 200
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Kikugawa Eishin, Dolls for the Dolls Festival, Japan, 1818', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.422483
(accessed 20 September 2024 11:35:14).