Surimono of landscapes

 

Title: Cranes live a thousand years, tortoises ten thousand years and everything will be all right (Senkaku manki daidai kanou)

Description: Close-up of a net containing fish, an octopus and a lobster with mount Fuji in the distance

Size: 36.8 by 51.4 centimeters

Publisher: Mikuni-ya Shosuke

Date: 1849-1850 

Schaap: 1.a.7

 

NOTE: This is a program for a musical recital.

 

Series: A Series of Five Views of Mount Fuji (Fuji goban no uchi)

Description: A distant sunrise view of Mount Fuji seen across the sea from the shrine at Susaki

Size: Shikishiban (about 8 by 7 inches or 21 by 18 centimeters)

Date: 1827-1829

Schaap: 2.a.5.1

 

I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this image.

 

I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this alternate state of the above surimono without dark clouds.

 

This alternative state with no poem and lacking the series title and emblem of the poetry club is listed in Schaap as 2.a.5.1a.

 

Title: The Birth of an Island

Description: Enoshima rising from the sea at behest of the goddess Benten

Size: Shikishiban (about 8 by 7 inches or 21 by 18 centimeters)

Date: c. 1835

Schaap: 3.1

 

I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this image.  The poem reads The scent of plum blossoms laughing in the spring breeze, The water of Asazawa flowing through the snow (春風に笑う梅の香あわ雪もとけて流るる浅沢の水)

 

I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this image of an alternate state with more dark clouds.

 

Title: View of Hakone: The Stream of Asazawa in the Spring

Description: A stream running between two hills with Mount Fuji in the distance

Size: Shikishiban (about 8 by 7 inches or 21 by 18 centimeters)

Date: 1828

Schaap: 3.2

 

The poem translates as:

In the spring wind, there is the scent of the laughing plum.

The soft snow melts to be the waters of the Asazawa.

 

I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this image with the poem in a different location.  Schaap also lists a variant of this image without a poem as 3.2a.

 

 

Description: Distant view of the island of Enoshima with Mount Fuji behind

Size: Shikishiban (about 8 by 7 inches or 21 by 18 centimeters)

Publisher: Ise-ya Sanjirô

Date: 1827-1829

Schaap: 3.3

 

This is another state of the above surimono without Kuniyoshi’s square red signature seal in the left lower corner.  The crests of the waves demonstrate karazuri, also known as gauffrage”, “embossing” or “blind printing”.  In karazuri, a design is produced by pressing the paper against a carved but uninked woodblock. 

 

Description: A man crossing a plank bridge leading to a small shrine on an island

Size: Shikishiban (about 8 by 7 inches or 21 by 18 centimeters)

Date:

Schaap: 3.4

 

NOTE: This surimono is unsigned.  I am grateful to Ward Pieters for the image.

 

Description: A tortoise seated by a pine tree watching the New Year’s sunrise

Size: Shikishiban (about 8 by 7 inches or 21 by 18 centimeters)

Date: c.1832

Schaap: 3.5

 

I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this image.

 

No image available

 

Description: Sea and landscape with Mount Fuji

Size:

Date:

Schaap: 3.6

 

Description: A kyôka poem on poem paper and a landscape of pine branches, cranes and the sea (Tsuru ni umi no kei)

Size: Shikishiban (about 8 by 7 inches or 21 by 18 centimeters)

Date:  Early 1830s

Schaap: 4.1

 

I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this image.

 

Description: A scene on the Sumida River

Size: Nagaban 7 1/4 × 20 7/16 inches (18.4 × 51.9 cm)

Date: c. 1815-1817 

Schaap: Not listed

 

Schaap” refers to listing in Heroes and Ghosts: Japanese Prints by Kuniyoshi by Robert Schaap (Hotei Publishing, Leiden, 1998).

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