Totoya Hokkei (1780-1850)
A New Year's surimono: An elegant Heian era court lady or poetess, dressed in a murasaki purple coloured robe decorated with stylized wheels and aoi hollyhock leaves, turns to a young girl who is feeding a crane besides a winding brook. In the background young pine shoots and the rising sun, like the crane auspicious symbols for the New Year. Above three poems by the poets Tsurunoya Matsukado (or Shomon), Hirose Suiseki and Komogaki (or Suzugaki) Makuzu.
Signature: Hokkei
Date: c. 1830-35
Size: Shikishiban, 21,2 x 18 cm
Excellent impression and colours, with relief printing and metallic pigments. Top verso paper remnants of previous attachment, else excellent condition.
Rare. So far no other copy traceable in any collection. Kruml 1989, No. 107 (reading the third poet’s name Magaki Makuzu).
The poet Tsururunoya possibly identical with the Ôsaka Kyôka poet Tsurunoya Osamaru (died 1839), head of the Tsurunoya or Tsuru-gawa poetry club, whose hallmark was the crane.
A female parody (mitate) of the Song era Chinese immortal poet Lin Hejing (aka Lin Heqing, Lin Bu; in Japanese Rinnasei or Rin Nasei). He lived as a hermit with tame cranes and was often depicted with a young servant and a crane – as also designed by Hokkei in an earlier surimono (see MFA, 2009.5127, and John T. Carpenter, Reading Surimono, Leiden/Boston 2008, p. 216f, no. 90).
sold