Lot Essay
Yamaguchi Soken, one of Maruyama Okyo's (1733-1795) top pupils, created many ukiyo-e. Here he depicts a geisha holding an ivory samisen plectrum in one hand as she suggestively fingers a hairpin with the other. The kyoka (31-syllable witty verse), signed Koinsha Takakage, reads:
sore to mite
kiku to mo wakazu
kimi ga te ni
ayanaku nokoru
ito no shirabe wa
As we gaze upon her
and try to hear,
we can never know
what inscrutable melody
lingers in her hands.
(Translated by John Carpenter)
The artist's circular vermillion seal is in the shape of a premodern Japanese coin which had a square hole in the middle. The two characters on either side of the square shape read Sansai, Soken's go or artistic name. Other paintings by the artist bearing the same seal are published in Narizaki Muneshige, Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e II, Nihon no bijutsu, (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1987), nos. 86, 88.
sore to mite
kiku to mo wakazu
kimi ga te ni
ayanaku nokoru
ito no shirabe wa
As we gaze upon her
and try to hear,
we can never know
what inscrutable melody
lingers in her hands.
(Translated by John Carpenter)
The artist's circular vermillion seal is in the shape of a premodern Japanese coin which had a square hole in the middle. The two characters on either side of the square shape read Sansai, Soken's go or artistic name. Other paintings by the artist bearing the same seal are published in Narizaki Muneshige, Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e II, Nihon no bijutsu, (Tokyo: Shibundo, 1987), nos. 86, 88.