handscroll;
painting
- Museum number
- 1881,1210,0.562
- Description
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Painting, handscroll. Toba-e (genre comic pictures) with kyoku (humorous poetry). Colour on paper. Signed, sealed, inscribed.
- Production date
- 18thC
- Dimensions
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Height: 27.70 centimetres
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Width: 1017.80 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Hizo Nihon bijutsu taikan Vol 2
'Toba-e', "Toba picture," a term derived from Toba Sojo, whose name is traditionally associated with the celebrated 'Choju jinbutsu giga' scrolls, is a lightly satirical genre that was popular in the Edo period. It is not clear when and by whom these 'Toba-e' paintings were first conceived, but judging from the works that survive, they can hardly date back earlier than the mid-Edo period. One characteristic of the genre is the relative slenderness and length of the limbs of the human figures, together with the fact that a large number of them are shown laughing. The limbs, again, are done in relatively straight lines that suggest the kind of doll made with wooden chopsticks. Almost all 'Toba-e' are executed in simple brushstrokes with the addition of light color.
The present scroll, which shows all these characteristics of the 'Toba-e', adds a 'kyoku' (seventeen-syllable light verse) to each picture. The absurdity of the scene showing two grown men cutting at a large melon, not with a saw but with something shaped like a large feather duster, is typical of its humorous parodying of well-known sayings. Such rather wry humor is presented in an engagingly cheerful, relaxed way.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1881
- Acquisition notes
- The collection of over 2,000 Japanese and Chinese paintings assembled by Prof. William Anderson during his residency in Japan, 1873-1880, was acquired by the Museum in 1881. The items were not listed in the register, but rather were published separately as the 'Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of a Collection of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum' (Longmans & Co, 1886).
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1881,1210,0.562
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.344 (Japanese Painting Number)