The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of February 6, 2023

Kuronushi from the series The New Six Immortal Poets

新六歌仙 黒主

c. 1795

Chōbunsai Eishi 鳥文斎栄之

(Japanese, 1756–1829)

Japan, Edo period

(1615-1868)

Color woodblock print

Sheet: 33.4 x 20.5 cm (13 1/8 x 8 1/16 in.)

The Fanny Tewksbury King Collection 1956.755

Location

not on view

Description

This print shows a courtesan adjusting her hairdo before a mirror as her attendant looks on. In the cartouche next to her is a poem by Ōtomo no Kuronishi, a Heian period courtier celebrated as one of the Six Immortal Poets. His portrait and name appear in the disk-shaped title cartouche.

The poem reads: "Mirror Mountain / Has been raised high / To show us all / Our Lord will live a thousand years!" The poem appears in the Anthology of Ancient and Modern Verse (Kokinwakashū) with a note that it was sung at the investiture of the Emperor Daigo (885-930). Here, the courtesan could be perceived as a stand-in for the emperor, making this a rather risqué print.

Inscriptions

Inscription

Signature: Eishi zu Seal: kiwame

Provenance
?–1956
Fanny Tewksbury King [1867–1949], Cleveland, OH, sold by her estate to the Cleveland Museum of Art
1956–
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history

Japanese Prints and Ceramics from The Cleveland Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, and The Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College. College of Wooster, Wooster, OH (1981).

Ukiyo-e: The Floating World Revisited. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (February 2-April 3, 1994).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1956.755