Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments
height 201 mm × width 178 mm
Keisai Eisen
Woman and Children Feeding Chicken
Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan, 1825
Provenance
…; collection John Stewart Happer (1863-1936), Japan and London; his sale, London (Sotheby’s, Wilkinson & Hodge), April and June 1909;1 …; purchased from the dealer Hotei Japanese Prints, Leiden, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1984;2 by whom donated to the museum, 1991
Object number: RP-P-1991-547
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Keisai Eisen (1791-1848) was a follower of Kikugawa Eizan, who found his own style and successfully developed a Bunsei period ideal of feminine beauty. He was also important as a writer, under the name Mumeio, updating the Ukiyoe ruiko, the first chronicle of the ukiyoe tradition.
Entry
A woman carrying a young boy on her back watches her other son feeding a cock and a hen. A plum tree behind them.
Three poems by Hamabe Akahito [probably identical to Yube no Akahito, from Besshomura in Shinano Province],3 Hamabe Matsushige and Kyokado [Yomo no Utagaki Magao, 1753-1829, Shikatsube Magao, pupil of Yomo Akara. Used the name ‘Yomo’ from 1796, when he became a judge of the Yomogawa. Alternative name Kyokado].4
The first poem, by Akahito, reads:
Another year has passed and it is now going to change into the New Cock Year.
The other poems are in a similar vein:
The Year of the Cock comes again, reminding us that another year has flown - certainly a suitable time for the bird of Spring spirit.
And:
Travelling to the shrine along auspicious paths, the mother and her children find plenty of good fortune to start the New Cock Year.
Issued by followers of the poet Yomo Magao
Signature reading: Keisai
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 505
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Keisai Eisen, Woman and Children Feeding Chicken, Japan, 1825', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.363355
(accessed 23 November 2024 01:38:12).