Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments and blindprinting
height 140 mm × width 106 mm
Kubota Shunman
Woman Holding a Tray with Clothing
Japan, Japan, 1807
Provenance
…; purchased from the dealer C.P.J. van der Peet Japanese Prints, Amsterdam, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1989;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1991
Object number: RP-P-1991-667
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
Context
The series probably uses the teaching of good manners to portray a selection of upper-class ladies.
Other known designs are all signed Shosado. However, there is no signature on this design. Perhaps the signature to the poem sufficed, or it could have been lost from the lower right during restoration.
For other designs from the series, see:
Serving a New Year's meal;2
Presenting a set of bow and arrows;3
How to examine a sword;4
Holding a long ladle^;[Ibid., 245.]
Greeting a patron in Nakanocho.5
The artist
Kubota Shunman (1757-1820), popularly called Kubo Shunman, was a pupil of Kitao Shigemasa who was also strongly influenced by Torii Kiyonaga and Katsukawa Shuncho. He created an attractive blend of the various ideals of feminine beauty prevalent in his time. He also used the art name Shosado. In addition to designing prints and making paintings, he was a poet and a writer and ran a studio that produced surimono. It was probably in this capacity that he introduced some of the innovations of the mid-Bunka period (1809-13), exploring the concept of large series of shikishiban surimono.
Entry
A court lady holds a wooden stand with an over-kimono draped over it.
The Way of Presenting an Over-Kimono: Accomplished as Described in the ??(?), Kaminishimo no idashiyo, - Toshidoshi - shirushite wo nasu, from the series The Way of Training According to the Colours of Spring, Shunshoku shitsukekata.
One poem by Shosado [Kubota Shunman, 1757-1820, a pupil of Tsumuri no Hikaru and a member of the Hakurakugawa].6
Issued by the Hakurakugawa Poetry Club(?)
Unsigned, or the signature was lost during restoration
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 73
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Kubota Shunman, Woman Holding a Tray with Clothing, Japan, 1807', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.422435
(accessed 21 September 2024 22:13:28).