hashira-e
- Museum number
- 1906,1220,0.45
- Description
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Woodblock print. Korean man with tall hat, standing and smoking with pipe; smoke from his pipe forming seven characters from Chinese poem of the Tang dynasty. Inscribed and sealed.
- Production date
- 1741-1748
- Dimensions
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Height: 66.70 centimetres
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Width: 15 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Given that Toyonobu's print was published during, or immediately after, a Korean embassy visited Edo, and that the eagerness with which Japanese scholars and artists flocked to exchange poetry, paintings and calligraphy with the Koreans (most famously in 1748, Ikeno Taiga and Ueda Akinari), this choice seems a parodic comment: the last line--not quoted in the print--seems to me to suggest this atmosphere of 'tawamure' (憧れ, play). (Ronald Toby, August 2016)
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A street performer dressed as a Korean who used to smoke from his large pipe to 'write' in the air - here a line from a Chinese poem. Hand-colouring continued for large format prints in the 1740's and 50's, even after the introduction of two and three-colour printing. (Label copy, TTC, 1998)
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Smith 1988
The Korean, recognisable from his tall hat, is shown smoking. The smoke forms seven characters from a Chinese poem of the Tang Dynasty. As in the print by Kiyonobu (no. 23), there may be some confusion between Chinese and Koreans, whom the Japanese of the time never normally saw because of their Government's policy of Isolation. The print is sealed 'Ishikawa-shi' and 'Toyonobu'.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2014, April - Oct, BM Japanese Galleries, ‘Japan from prehistory to the present’
2010 Oct 19- 2011 Feb 14, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from Prehistory to the Present'
- Acquisition date
- 1906
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1906,1220,0.45
