- Museum number
- 1913,0501,0.392
- Description
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Painting, hanging scroll. Priest Saigyo, wearing travelling hat and Buddhist monk's black robes and carrying walking-stick, exchanging poems with the courtesan Eguchi, standing in a doorway. Ink and colour on paper. Signed and sealed.
- Production date
- 1736-1748
- Dimensions
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Height: 116 centimetres
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Width: 51 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Clark 1992
The famous exchange of poems between the itinerant monk Saigyo (1118-90) and a courtesan at Eguchi, on the mouth of the Yodo River near Osaka, is first recorded in the anthology 'Senjusho', attributed to Saigyo himself. He was caught in a storm and chided the courtesan, who was also named Eguchi, for refusing him temporary lodging for the night. She replied that since he was a holy man she had thought he would not wish to enjoy such transient pleasures. In the fifteenth century the episode became the basis for the No play 'Eguchi', in which Eguchi reveals herself to be a manifestation of the Bodhisattva Fugen. In the Edo period the story was further adapted in popular drama and narration and as an appropriate vehicle for 'mitate' depictions of courtesans by Ukiyo-e artists.
Saigyo, wearing a travelling hat and monk's black robes and carrying a walking-stick, is shown with his head raised in a gesture of petition, while the courtesan (dressed in contemporary eighteenth-century style) turns away from the door, as if she has already decided to refuse him lodging. Doubtless Sukenobu's patron was amused by the incongruity of seeing a smartly dressed Kyoto courtesan in such a humble thatched cottage and delighted by the contrast between her girlish features and the artist's sensitive portrait of the aged monk.
A version of 'Saigyo and Eguchi' by Miyagawa Choshun in the Powers Collection (see John Rosenfield, 'Traditions of Japanese Art', Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1970, no. 143) must be almost contemporary with this Sukenobu work; both are among the earliest depictions of the theme in Ukiyo-e painting.
Literature:
'(Hizo) Ukiyo-e taikan' ('Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections'), ed. Narazaki Muneshige. Vol. 1, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1987, no. 111.
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Asahi 1996
遊行法師•西行（1118－90）が淀川河口、大阪にほど近い江口という町の遊女と和歌のやり取りををしたという話は有名だが、これが最初に記されたのは、西行自身の作といわれる詩選『選集抄』であった。ある時西行は嵐にあい、江口という名の遊女に一夜の宿を請うたが、あいにく断わられる。西行は遊女をとがめたが、「あなた様は仏に仕える身、こうした束の間の快楽などお望みのはずはないでしょう」と遊女は自らを卑しめて答えたという話。15世紀には、この逸話が底本となって謡曲「江口」が生まれ、江口が自ら普賢菩薩の化身であることを明かすという新たな筋が加えられた。江戸時代に入ると、この話は大衆的な戯曲や物語の中に取り入れられたり、遊女の見立に格好の題材として浮世絵師たちに利用されるようになっていく。
旅笠に杖、黒染の衣という出で立ちの西行は、請うようなしぐさで顔を上げる。それに対して当世風の着物に身を包んだ遊女は、すでに断わる決心が固いのか、西行から体を背けている。祐信のパトロンは、おそらく小ぎれいに身づくろった京都の遊女と見るも粗末な藁葺の小屋という取り合わせの不調和を面白がり、少女のような彼女の容貌と画家が特に気を入れて描いた老法師の面もちの対比を喜んだに違いない。
パワーズ•コレクションの宮川長春筆「西行と江口図」（John Rosenfield, ‘Traditions of Japanese Art’, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, 1970, no. 143）も本図とほぼ同時期の作と思われる。これらはこの題材が肉筆浮世絵に登場した最も早い作例に数えられる。
（荒木康子（福島県立美術館））
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
1996, Chiba City Museum of Art & Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, 'Daiei Hakubutsukan nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten' (Masterpieces of Ukiyo-e Painting from the British Museum)
2009 Jul 1- Oct 25, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from prehistory to the present'
- Associated titles
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Associated Title: Senjusho (anthology)
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Associated Title: Eguchi (No play)
- 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
- 1913,0501,0.392
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.1400 (Japanese Painting Number)
