hanging scroll;
painting
- Museum number
- 1913,0501,0.315
- Description
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Painting, hanging scroll. Woman standing with mattock over one shoulder and pine seedlings in basket. Ink and colour on silk. Signed and sealed.
- Production date
- 1811-1830
- Dimensions
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Height: 80 centimetres
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Width: 30 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Clark 1992
One of the annual events in the calendar of the Kyoto Imperial court was an outing to the surrounding country on the first rat day of the New Year to collect pine seedlings ('ne no hi asobi' or 'komatsu hiki'), and here a woman of the court stands with a mattock over one shoulder with which she has dug the pine seedlings in her basket. Her robes hang open at the front in alluring 'déshabillé', and her long tresses of hair are allowed to hang down free at the back.
The painting imitates all the mannerisms of style of the beauties of Hokusai's Taito and Iitsu periods - full face, long almond eyes with a pink blush around them, heavily crinkled outline to the under-robes, and so on - but without managing to match the level of technical accomplishment or tautness of composition of the master. The patterning of the robes, for instance, is mundane in comparison with works by Hokusai from the same period.
Literature:
'(Hizo) Ukiyo-e taikan' ('Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections'), ed. Narazaki Muneshige. Vol. 1, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1987, BW no. 34.
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Asahi 1996
京都の朝廷の年中行事の一つに、子の日遊びまたは小松引と呼ばれる、新年の初めての子の日に松の若木を集めに郊外に遊ぶ行事がある。ここでは官女が鋤を肩にしょっている。鋤は篭の松の若木を掘るのに使ったものである。着物の前をはだけて誘うように下着をのぞかせ、なみうつ長い髪を背中に垂らしている。
本作品は北斎が戴斗•為一号を名のった時期の美人画の典型的な様式を模している。ふっくらした顔貌、まわりをほんのり赤く染めた切れ長の眼、下着に見るようなちりちりした輪郭線などがそうである。しかしながら描写のテクニックも構図の緊張感も師の水準には及ばない。例えば着物の柄も同時期の北斎の作品にくらべてありふれたものである。
(伊藤紫織(千葉市美術館))
- Location
- Not on display
- Associated events
- Associated Event: New Year
- Acquisition date
- 1913
- Acquisition notes
- The collection of Japanese and Chinese paintings belonging to Arthur Morrison was purchased by Sir William Gwynne-Evans, who presented it to the British Museum in 1913.
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1913,0501,0.315
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.1502 (Japanese Painting Number)