Object data
nishikie, with blindprinting and mica
height 135 mm × width 182 mm
Katsushika Hokusai
A Medicine Case Upon a Fan
Japan, Japan, 1798
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-1991-627
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
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 black-lacquered three-tiered medicine case, inro, decorated with cherry blossom in silver, places on a partly opened fan. The fan with a decoration of young pines. Attached to the inro are a coral bead, ojime, and a flat netsuke, probably a disc of potwhale ivory.
The numerals for the long months of 1798, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11, and 12, are indicated on the surface of the netsuke. The paper of the fan is blindprinted with a fine labyrinthine pattern, possibly imitating silk.
Two poems by Yorozu Rakutasu(?) and Mankitei [I, Hana no] Edosumi [a judge of the Yomogawa, d. 1805].2
Both poems refer to the inro in the design.
Issued by a follower of the poet Mankitei Edosumi
Signature reading: Sori ga
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 89
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Katsushika Hokusai, A Medicine Case Upon a Fan, Japan, 1798', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.422440
(accessed 27 November 2024 01:31:16).