Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments and blindprinting
height 207 mm × width 181 mm
Totoya Hokkei
Brazier and Piled Up Sake Barrels
Japan, Japan, 1832
Provenance
…; purchased from the dealer Bernard Haase, London, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1999;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1999
Object number: RP-P-1999-240
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
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 pile of six large sake barrels with a New Year's decoration attached. In the foreground a table with a large brazier, a pipe in its case and a tobacco pouch.
The inscriptions on the bottom row of the sake barrels read Hakujuen, the name of the poet on this print. The first character is written to resemble a shop-sign, possibly indicating that he was a sake merchant. Two characters on the middle row read as Noda, the town where he lived, the province Shimosa indicated on the top barrel. The large dragon on the brazier refers to the New Dragon Year.
One poem by Hakujuen Hiroyoshi [earlier Hakujuen Senko, later Hakkosha Hiroyoshi, a judge of the Shoritsuen poetry club; he lived in Noda in Shimosa Province].2 The poem is a conventional New Year's poem.
Issued by the poet
Signature reading: on request, motome ni ojite Hokkei ga
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 346
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Totoya Hokkei, Brazier and Piled Up Sake Barrels, Japan, 1832', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.359181
(accessed 13 November 2024 06:25:22).