print
- Museum number
- 1919,0715,0.4
- Title
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Object: Kan Ke 菅家
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Series: Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki 百人一首姥がゑとき (One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets, Explained by the Nurse)
- Description
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Colour woodblock print. Poem by Kan Ke (Sugawara no Michizane), stationary ox-cart with maple leaves fluttering around, figures.
- Production date
- 1830s(late)
- Dimensions
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Height: 25.70 centimetres
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Width: 37 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
- Clark 2017
Poem 24: Kono tabi wa / nusa mo tariaezu / Tamukeyama / momiji no nishiki / kami no manimani (This time around / I couldn’t even bring sacred streamers / – Offering Hill – / but if this brocade of autumn leaves / is to the gods’ liking…. Trans. Joshua Mostow.) One of the few designs in the series to give the ancient poem a courtly setting, this print shows an imperial carriage parked outside a shrine, with servants, guards and decorated ox patiently awaiting the return of their passenger, as autumn leaves start to fall. The scene appears to be based on the circumstances behind the poem’s composition. In ad 898, Kan Ke (Sugawara no Michizane, ad 845–903) accompanied Emperor Uda (ad 887–897) on an autumn excursion to Offering Hill in Nara, and recognizing the beauty of the surrounding foliage, imagined that a ‘brocade of
autumn leaves’ might serve as a suitable gift for the gods.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2017 8 July - 13 Aug, London, BM, G35, Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave
2017 6 Oct - 19 Nov, Osaka, Abeno Harukas Art Museum
2022 16 Apr-12 Jun, Tokyo, Suntory Museum of Art, Hokusai from the British Museum
2023–2024 Oct-Jan, Santa Ana, CA, USA, Bowers Museum, Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave
- Acquisition date
- 1919
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1919,0715,0.4