Object data
nishikie
height 137 mm × width 184 mm
Kubota Shunman
A Meeting of Three Poets
Japan, Japan, 1799
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-1999-245
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
A meeting of three poets, an older man seated at right, a brush in his hand, a standing woman in the centre holding a fan and a poetry-slip, tanzaku. To the left a seated man with an upright book on top of his head attached with a ribbon under his chin as if it were a court-cap, eboshi. It is quite likely that the poets who contributed the poetry are portrayed on this print: the man at right certainly looks old enough to be Haginoya. This would imply that the man to the left is possibly a self-portrait of Shunman. The surface of the paper has been treated to suggest silk, (cf RP-P-1991-619).
Two poems by Haginoya-o [Oya no] Urasumi [1734-1810, a leader of the Honchoren],2 and Bun? Tokigoromo, and one anonymous poem, possibly also by Bun? Tokigoromo or by the designer, Kubota Shunman [1757-1820, a pupil of Tsumuri no Hikaru and a member of the Hakurakugawa],3 although Shunman generally signed his poems on prints.
The last poem has the introductory words: 'It is good that the New Year of the Goat has come', Hitsuji mato yoshi.
Issued by the poets
Signature reading: Shosado Shunman, with seal: Sho
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 62
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Kubota Shunman, A Meeting of Three Poets, Japan, 1799', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.359177
(accessed 23 November 2024 22:23:54).