Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments and blindprinting (on the feather attached to the arrow)
height 198 mm × width 171 mm
Keisai Eisen
Archery Equipment
Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan, c. 1830 - c. 1835
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-1999-244
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
On a pale yellow ground with large characters in reserve, a still life of a bow, an arrow in the target, an archer’s hat, sleeve and handkerchief.
The characters in reserve on the ground read Hana, after the first poet, Shofuen Hananushi.
Print from the series The Three Lights, Sanko
Four poems by Shofuen Hananushi [also Senshu Hananushi, early name Monaka Tsukimaru, a member of the Shuchodo poetry club],2 Manzaitei Gyokunari, Chikushien Itoyori [a samurai in the service of the lord of Odawara],3 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 poem by Hananushi reads:
The moon is a bow, its arrows pierce the stars, its target - thus are people touched by the first song of the warbler.
The other poems make similar references to the elements in the design.
No other designs in this series could be identified. As all the poems refer to stars, it is possible that the series takes the sun, the moon and the stars as ‘The Three Lights’.
Issued by the Yomogawa
Signature reading: Keisai
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 512
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Keisai Eisen, Archery Equipment, Japan, c. 1830 - c. 1835', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.359183
(accessed 10 November 2024 10:38:09).