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Lot Essay
published:
Azabu Museum of Art, and Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, eds., Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten: Azabu bijutsukan shozo/Ukiyo-e Painting Masterpieces in the Collection of the Azabu Museum of Art, introduction by Kobayashi Tadashi, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Azabu Museum of Art; Osaka: Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, 1988), pls. 74, 75.
Donald Jenkins, The Floating World Revisited, exh. cat. (Portland: Portland Art Museum, 1993), no. IV-17.
Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Azabu bijutsu kogeikan (Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts), vol. 6 of Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e taikan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995), pls. 57--1, 57--2.
Okatomo Hiromi, " 'Shokusanjin ennyo meisekishu' shoshu: Ukiyo-e kaisetsu" ('Shokusanjin ennyo meisekishu': Notes on the ukiyo-e [paintings]), Azabu bijutsukan kenkyu kiyo/Bulletin of the Azabu Museum of Art 2 (autumn 1986), 2 color pls. as frontispc., nos. 1--41.
Shibata Mitsuhiko, " 'Shokusanjin ennyo meisekishu'," Azabu bijutsukan kenkyu kiyo/Bulletin of the Azabu Museum of Art 2 (autumn 1986), pp. 4-23.
Tanaka Tatsuya, "Sakuga jiki kara sokyu suru kasan jiki no mondai: Aru bunjin no asobi" (The problem of judging the date of inscriptions retroactively from the date of the work itself: A certain playfulness of literati), Ukiyo-e geijutsu/Ukiyo-e Art 103 (April 1992), no. 8.
Tokubetsu ten Hokusai: Fukutsu no gajin damashii (Special exhibition of Hokusai: The indomitable painter's spirit), exh. cat. (Nagoya: Nagoya City Museum and Chunichi Shimbunsha, 1991), pl. 195.
Pasted to the pages of this album is a wide variety of memorabilia associated with the Edo literatus Ota Nanpo (pen name Shokusanjin; 1749-1823), a kyoka master, author of light fiction, and influential arbiter of Edo salon culture. In 1804 Nanpo was assigned to a post as the shogun's magistrate in Nagasaki. He apparently presented this collection of manuscript material as a souvenir of Edo to a wealthy merchant in Nagasaki, one Nakamura Sakugoro. The album was probably assembled in its present form around 1904, when commentary was appended by Kaneko Shizue, a journalist for the Kyoto Shimbun. The collection includes personal correspondence, drafts of poems, inscribed fans and tanzaku, and several sketches, the majority of which are by Nanpo himself.
Most of the examples date to around the time of Nanpo's original assignment to Nagasaki, in 1804/05, but there are also letters and poems composed several years later. Among the inscribed works are examples by the kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjuro V, the geisha Katsu, the courtesan Nareginu, the kyoka master Shikatsube Magao, the novelist Santo Kyoden, and the kanshi (Chinese-style verse) poets Kikuchi Gozan and Okubo Shibutsu (lots 72 and 113). The album thus serves as a fascinating compendium of material documenting the interaction between prominent members of literary, theater, and art circles of the day. Two sketches with poems--one of a courtesan and another of a geisha--are by Nanpo himself. Fan paintings with a Chinese-style landscape by Haruki Nanmei (1795-1878) and a playful image of the Chinese poet Li Bo in his cups by Unshitsu Dojin demonstrate Nanpo's links to literati artists.
A small painting on silk of a wakashu (elegant young man) by Hokusai and a fan painting by his pupil Hokuba of a young woman entering a mosquito net are both inscribed with poems by Nanpo. It appears that Hokusai and Hokuba created their works at a gathering of poets and artists held to wish Nanpo bon voyage just before he left for Nagasaki in 1804. The painting by Hokusai -- signed Gakyojin Hokusai ga and sealed Kimo dasoku--includes a kyoka on a homoerotic theme and is signed with one of Nanpo's well-known pseudonyms, Yomo Sanjin:
ominaeshi More so than the maidenflower
namameki tateru which is charming from the front,
mae yori mo I prefer the hips
ushiro medashi ya of "purple-trouser" blossoms
fujibakama koshi best seen from the rear.
Azabu Museum of Art, and Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, eds., Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten: Azabu bijutsukan shozo/Ukiyo-e Painting Masterpieces in the Collection of the Azabu Museum of Art, introduction by Kobayashi Tadashi, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Azabu Museum of Art; Osaka: Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, 1988), pls. 74, 75.
Donald Jenkins, The Floating World Revisited, exh. cat. (Portland: Portland Art Museum, 1993), no. IV-17.
Kobayashi Tadashi, ed., Azabu bijutsu kogeikan (Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts), vol. 6 of Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e taikan (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995), pls. 57--1, 57--2.
Okatomo Hiromi, " 'Shokusanjin ennyo meisekishu' shoshu: Ukiyo-e kaisetsu" ('Shokusanjin ennyo meisekishu': Notes on the ukiyo-e [paintings]), Azabu bijutsukan kenkyu kiyo/Bulletin of the Azabu Museum of Art 2 (autumn 1986), 2 color pls. as frontispc., nos. 1--41.
Shibata Mitsuhiko, " 'Shokusanjin ennyo meisekishu'," Azabu bijutsukan kenkyu kiyo/Bulletin of the Azabu Museum of Art 2 (autumn 1986), pp. 4-23.
Tanaka Tatsuya, "Sakuga jiki kara sokyu suru kasan jiki no mondai: Aru bunjin no asobi" (The problem of judging the date of inscriptions retroactively from the date of the work itself: A certain playfulness of literati), Ukiyo-e geijutsu/Ukiyo-e Art 103 (April 1992), no. 8.
Tokubetsu ten Hokusai: Fukutsu no gajin damashii (Special exhibition of Hokusai: The indomitable painter's spirit), exh. cat. (Nagoya: Nagoya City Museum and Chunichi Shimbunsha, 1991), pl. 195.
Pasted to the pages of this album is a wide variety of memorabilia associated with the Edo literatus Ota Nanpo (pen name Shokusanjin; 1749-1823), a kyoka master, author of light fiction, and influential arbiter of Edo salon culture. In 1804 Nanpo was assigned to a post as the shogun's magistrate in Nagasaki. He apparently presented this collection of manuscript material as a souvenir of Edo to a wealthy merchant in Nagasaki, one Nakamura Sakugoro. The album was probably assembled in its present form around 1904, when commentary was appended by Kaneko Shizue, a journalist for the Kyoto Shimbun. The collection includes personal correspondence, drafts of poems, inscribed fans and tanzaku, and several sketches, the majority of which are by Nanpo himself.
Most of the examples date to around the time of Nanpo's original assignment to Nagasaki, in 1804/05, but there are also letters and poems composed several years later. Among the inscribed works are examples by the kabuki actor Ichikawa Danjuro V, the geisha Katsu, the courtesan Nareginu, the kyoka master Shikatsube Magao, the novelist Santo Kyoden, and the kanshi (Chinese-style verse) poets Kikuchi Gozan and Okubo Shibutsu (lots 72 and 113). The album thus serves as a fascinating compendium of material documenting the interaction between prominent members of literary, theater, and art circles of the day. Two sketches with poems--one of a courtesan and another of a geisha--are by Nanpo himself. Fan paintings with a Chinese-style landscape by Haruki Nanmei (1795-1878) and a playful image of the Chinese poet Li Bo in his cups by Unshitsu Dojin demonstrate Nanpo's links to literati artists.
A small painting on silk of a wakashu (elegant young man) by Hokusai and a fan painting by his pupil Hokuba of a young woman entering a mosquito net are both inscribed with poems by Nanpo. It appears that Hokusai and Hokuba created their works at a gathering of poets and artists held to wish Nanpo bon voyage just before he left for Nagasaki in 1804. The painting by Hokusai -- signed Gakyojin Hokusai ga and sealed Kimo dasoku--includes a kyoka on a homoerotic theme and is signed with one of Nanpo's well-known pseudonyms, Yomo Sanjin:
ominaeshi More so than the maidenflower
namameki tateru which is charming from the front,
mae yori mo I prefer the hips
ushiro medashi ya of "purple-trouser" blossoms
fujibakama koshi best seen from the rear.