Object data
nishikie, with blindprinting
height 103 mm × width 182 mm
Kubota Shunman
Still Life of Various Vegetables
Japan, 1812
Inscriptions
-
stamped on verso with mark of Theodor Scheiwe
Provenance
…; collection Theodor Scheiwe (1897-1983), Münster (collector's mark);…; purchased from the dealer C.P.J. van der Peet Japanese Prints, Amsterdam, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1991;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1991
Object number: RP-P-1991-676
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
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
Berries, burdock and a bunch of young leeks on a bamboo leaf.
This design, originally part of a much larger yokonagaban surimono of c. 440 x 520-570 millimetres was apparently trimmed down to approximately the small horizontal format common in the early 1800s, probably in a successful attempt to reduce it to an image by removing the poetry. A copy of the full print has been preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale albums in Paris.
'Long surimono', as they are often called, generally served as invitations or announcements of theatrical performances for special invitees only. The programme was printed on the overleaf, the sheet being folded lengthwise, resulting in two halves each some 22 centimetres high. Quite often, the half containing the text was trimmed off and discarded, probably in an attempt to make them more appealing to Western buyers.
Poems trimmed off.
Issued by the Gomeiren
Seal reading: Shunman
Produced by the Shunman Studio
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 82
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Kubota Shunman, Still Life of Various Vegetables, Japan, 1812', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.363063
(accessed 15 November 2024 05:07:13).