Details
KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849)
Poem by Abe no Nakamaro
From the series One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse (Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki)
Woodblock print, signed Saki no Hokusai Manji
Published by Iseya Sanjiro (Eijudo)
Circa 1835-36
Woodblock print
Horizontal oban: 25.7 x 37.2 cm. (10 1/8 x 14 5/8 in.)

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Jessica Hsu
Jessica Hsu

Lot Essay

The Japanese nobleman and poet Abe no Nakamaro (698-770) stands on a hill looking out over the sea, accompanied by a number of attendants. Abe no Nakamaro composed the accompanying poem in China, in his longing for home:

Amanohara
furisake mireba
Kasuga naru
Mikasa no yama ni
ideshi tsuki ka mo

It might be the moon that shone
above Mount Mikasa in Nara
that I see in this faraway land
when now I look
across the vast fields of the stars.

For the same print in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), New York, accession number JP2940, go to: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/56175

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