hanging scroll;
painting
- Museum number
- 1913,0501,0.385
- Description
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Painting, hanging scroll. Courtesan and attendants, dressed in matching new robes decorated with cranes flying over tops of pine trees, passing in front of New Year display of pine boughs and bamboo. With poem. Ink and colour on silk. Signed, sealed and inscribed.
- Production date
- 1789-1821
- Dimensions
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Height: 92 centimetres
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Width: 30.40 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Clark 1992
The auspicious New Year 'kyoka' ('crazy verse') composed and inscribed on the painting by Ota Nampo (1749-1823), doyen of popular cultural circles, may be translated:
A New Year engagement
Is particularly expensive
So the hired comedians
Are practically in heaven -
Yoshiwara in spring. The 'first engagement' ('hatsukai') of a courtesan at the New Year was an especially lavish affair, so the comedians hired to entertain at parties ('massha' or 'hokan') stood to make a lot of money. There is also a string of word-play/associations involving the terms 'massha', which can also mean a small 'subsidiary shrine'; 'kamiyo' ('the age of the Gods', 'heaven'); and the idea that the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter at the New Year holiday was like heaven on earth. The same inscription appears on another painting by Shumman, 'Standing Courtesan Reading a Letter' (Tanaka 1911-13, vol. 2, pls not numbered).
As the signature suggests, Shumman took his lead from the poem and filled the painting, too, with auspicious New Year imagery: decked out in matching new robes with a lucky pattern of cranes flying over the tops of pine trees, the courtesan and her 'kamuro' attendant are on their way to the first engagement of the New Year, passing in front of a New Year display of fresh pine boughs and bamboo. In her hair, too, the 'kamuro' has arranged the first few red plum blossoms, with some tiny sprigs of pine. Broad strokes of ink wash have been skilfully used on the courtesan's surcoat to suggest the glossiness of the black silk.
Tanaka Tatsuya has suggested that the circular 'Shumman' seal on the present painting was used from the late Temmei (1781-9) to the early Bunka (1804-18) eras and that from mid-Bunka onwards Shumman switched to a different circular 'Shumman' seal, one which includes the three strokes of the water radical on the left-hand side of the character 'man' ('NU', vol. 5 (1983), pp. 77, 78). The face here has the pointed, slightly turned-up nose and narrow eyes which taper to slightly upturned points characteristic of Shumman's mature works.
In a second version of this subject by Shumman the composition is reversed and the courtesan has a 'yoko-hyogo' hairstyle ('Ukiyo-e taisei', vol. 8 (1930), no. 143).
Literature:
'(Hizo) Ukiyo-e taikan' ('Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections'), ed. Narazaki Muneshige. Vol. 1, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1987, no. 124.
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Asahi 1996
戯作文学の長老大田南畝（1749－1823）による、自作自書のめでたい狂歌が画上にある。その内容は、新年はじめて客が遊女に会う時には通常以上の末社（太鼓持、幇間の意）を頼むので、費用がかかることあたかも神の世のようだというもの。末社と神代という縁語を駆使し、正月の吉原を極楽のようと囃している。同じ狂歌が俊満の別作品「文読む立姿遊女図」（田中増蔵『浮世絵画集』第2巻 1911－13年 矢吹高尚堂 図版番号未記載）にある。
落款からうかがわれるように、俊満は狂歌に案を得て作画したらしい。画面も正月の景物で統一されており、松に鶴の吉祥模様という揃いの衣装を新調した遊女と禿が、吉原の門松の前を通って新年の最初の客に会いに行く。禿の髪飾りは、松の小枝に早咲きの紅梅を添えたもの。遊女の打掛の黒い絹地の輝きを示すため、幅広い墨が巧みにはかれている。
田中達也のよれば、本作品で使われた「俊満」円印は、天明年間（1781－89）後期から文化年間初期に用いられたもので、文化年間の半ばからは別の円形（『満』の「氵」を彫りこむもの）に代わるという（楢崎宗重監修『肉筆浮世絵』第5巻 1983年 集英社 77－8項）。本作品の、反り気味の尖り鼻と、しだいに狭まり目尻でやや跳ねあがる細い目は、俊満円熟期の特徴を示している。なお俊満には、横兵庫髷の遊女を左右逆に描く同画面の別作品もある（吉田瑛二『浮世絵大成』第8巻 1930年 東方書院 143図）。
（竹内美砂子（名古屋市博物館））
- 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
- 1913,0501,0.385
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.1419 (Japanese Painting Number)
