Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments
height 211 mm × width 181 mm
Totoya Hokkei
Still Life with a Writing-table
Japan, Japan, Japan, c. 1832
Provenance
…; purchased from the dealer C.P.J. van der Peet Japanese Prints, Amsterdam, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1982;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1991
Object number: RP-P-1991-449
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
Context
The Essays in Idleness, Tsurezuregusa, is a collection of a large number of rather loose notes and observations written in the 1320s by Yoshida Kenko, a poet of the late Kamakura period (1249-1382). As this appears to be unprecedented in series of prints - except for two earlier surimono series by Shunman and Gakutei - it is impossible to ascertain the number of prints in this series.
For others of the series, see:
Kai wo obou...: Two clams, the interior of one half with a painting of couple in a boat - MFA, 11.25460
Kotaka ni…: Two men and a dog running after a hawk 2; MFA 11.20600
Onna takami no...: Woman looking in a mirror 3; MFA 11.25452
Tsukushi ni...: Radish and armour 4; MFA 51.34
Wakaki otoko no...: Flute-playing courtier seen from the back 5; MFA 11.25453
Naho XX no saitaru samo koso medetaki kanonare: Two men arm wrestling - MFA 11.25457.
The artist
Totoya Hokkei (1780-1850) was a pupil of Katsushika Hokusai, although he was first trained in the Kano painting tradition and used the art-names Kyosai and Aoigaoka. He was one of the most prolific designers of surimono in the 1820s and early 1830s, and also illustrated numerous collections of kyoka poetry.
Entry
A view into a room with a writing table with several books, a vase of peacock feathers and a lamp. A brazier next to the table.
To be alone, Hitori, from the series Essays in Idleness, Tsurezuregusa
The title of the print is a quotation from Section IX of The Essays in Idleness, Tsurezuregusa:
To be alone by the light of a lamp with some open books and with friends no longer of this world — what could be sadder?
Two poems by Korokuro Funosoro and Juro Aizuru. The first poem continues where the quotation stops. While Kenko, the author of Tsurezuregusa (see below), continues by listing some of the books that comfort him, Funosoro states that:
In Spring, I can even appreciate things at night, for example, the flowers of words on my writing table.
Aizuru's poem reads:
The snow that was there when I studied is now melting and through my window, light still enters.
Issued by the Manjiren
Signature reading: Hokkei
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 347
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Totoya Hokkei, Still Life with a Writing-table, Japan, c. 1832', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.377895
(accessed 20 September 2024 06:41:15).