Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments
height 196 mm × width 521 mm
Utagawa Toyohiro
A Warrior Holding a Pestle
Japan, 1829
Inscriptions
- date
Provenance
...; collection Adolphe Stoclet (1871-1949), Paris; his sale, London (Sotheby's), 8 June 2004, no. 445, to J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer;1 by whom donated to the museum, 2004
Object number: RP-P-2004-518
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
Context
Other copies of this print are known in the collections of Sidney Ward and James B. Austin.
The artist
Utagawa Toyohiro (1773-1828) is said to have entered Utagawa Toyoharu's studio from 1782, though most of his work only seems to date from the early 19th century.
Entry
The Thirty-second Year, Sanjuninentsuzuki, from the series The Happy Annual Custom of Asahina Continued by Jihinari, Jihinari kichirei Asahina, issued by the poet Sakuragawa Jihinari, 1829.
As in RP-P-2004-517, the warrior is Asahina Saburo wearing the make-up typical of the kabuki role. His blue hakama is decorated with cherry blossoms floating on a light blue stream, his under-kimono with stylised cranes in lozenges. In this design he holds a huge wooden pestle in one hand, a mask representing Okame, the Goddess of Mirth and Folly, in the other (see RP-P-1960-282 for another example of an Okame mask, and RP-P-1991-671 for a representation of the goddess). The pestle and Okame mask allude to a court custom where the ladies would chase each other, trying to hit one of their number who would, it was believed, marry the following year (see Sotheby's London, 8/VI/2004, 437, for a Shunman surimono illustrating the end of such a party). Behind the figure of Asahina a flowering plum tree.
No poems.
Issued by the poet Sakuragawa Jihinari
Signature reading: Toyohiro ga
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 193
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Utagawa Toyohiro, A Warrior Holding a Pestle, Japan, 1829', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.425613
(accessed 15 November 2024 04:05:22).