EDO PERIOD (MID-17TH CENTURY)

This remarkable survival is closely based on the earliest printed version of the Sanjurokkasen-shu [Collection of Poems by the Thirty-Six Poetic Immortals], produced by Suminokura Soan (1571-1632) in about 1610 at the Saga press just outside Kyoto. The Sagabon version, which itself copies the script of the great calligrapher, painter, designer and arbiter of taste Hon'ami Koetsu (1558-1637), was printed by the traditional method of carving each page from a single block, rather than the movable type used (partially under European influence) for several other titles published by Suminokura. This old-fashioned technique resulted in a particularly fluid reproduction of Koetsu's calligraphy which was admirably re-captured by the embroiderer's needle.

The original books (or at any rate the copies formerly in the collection of Sorimachi Shigeo and now in the Hofer Collection, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museums) are, at 34.5 x 24.1cm., very slightly larger than the present volume.1 No doubt in the interests of simplifying the design, the embroiderer also omitted two elements of the original plates: the simple line border around each image and the depiction of the elaborately patterned edgings around the tatami mats on which the poets sit. Much of the embroidery, especially the large flat areas making up the poets' robes, is closely imitative of the needlework techniques seen in contemporary robes for the No drama and other items of luxury apparel, especially in the striking deployment of long horizontal untwisted strands of silk floss forming a soft, glossy padding, secured by much thinner vertical threads.2 Although such garments are conventionally attributed to the Momoyama period, which is usually regarded as ending in 1615, recent publications acknowledge that this style of decoration probably survived into the Kan'ei period, and it is suggested that the present volume most likely dates from some time towards the middle of the seventeenth century.3 Thanks to the fact that the embroideries were executed in book format, preserving them from long periods of direct exposure to sunlight, many of the colours retain much of their original freshness and vitality.

The only published parallel to the present Lot is provided by a set of twelve framed embroidery panels in the Mishima Shrine, Izu Province. Loosely based on the same originals as the present album, each of the panels depicts three poets, with the poems written in two coloured panels above each poet's heads, rather than forming an integral part of the design, as here. The Mishima panels are all inscribed Yojuin, a name used by Oman no Kata, a native of Izu Province, one of the consorts of Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542-1616, the unifier of Japan in the late sixteenth century) and mother of Tokugawa Yorifusa (1603-61), head of the Mito Tokugawa clan.4 The existence of needlework versions of a Sagabon is perhaps not surprising when one considers the vital importance of silk in Kyoto court culture; indeed, one Japanese historian has gone so far as to assert that 'seventeenth-century Japanese culture revolved around silk'. In particular, it is worth noting that the great textile entrepreneur Ogata Sohaku (1570-1631), who founded the textile business that would eventually be inherited by his grandsons the potter Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743) and painter and decorator Ogata Korin (1658-1716), was Koetsu's nephew and owned a plot of land at his artistic village of Takagamine in northern Kyoto. A document of 1675 identifies Sohaku, along with Koetsu himself, Akiba Koan and Suminokura Soan as one of the ablest exponents of the Hon'ami calligraphic style, while Sohaku's son Soken (1621-87) is said, in Richard Wilson's memorable phrase, to have 'surrounded his children with silk'. 5

The Sanjurokkasen grouping was originally devised by Fujiwara no Kinto (966-1041) and the earliest surviving pictorial version is found in two handscrolls dating from the first half of the thirteeenth century (the so-called Satake-bon).6 The Sagabon adopts the traditional approach of dividing the poets into two groups in the traditional manner used in depicting uta-awase [poetry competitions], the first eighteen mostly facing to their right while the second eighteen mostly face to their left. The poets are in the following order, with their other family names, ranks and honorary titles in square brackets:

[Kakinomoto no] Hitomaro
[Oshikochi no] Mitsune
[Otomo no] Chunagon Yakamochi
[Ariwara no] Narihira no Ason
Sosei Hoshi
Sarumaru Dayu
[Fujiwara no] Chunagon Kanesuke
[Fujiwara no] Chunagon Atsutada
[Minamoto no] Kintada no Ason
Saigu no Nyogo (also known as Princess Kishi)
[Fujiwara no ] Toshiyuki no Ason
[Minamoto no] Muneyuki no Ason
Fujiwara no Kiyotada
[Fujiwara no] Okikaze
[Sakanoue no] Korenori
Kodai no Kimi
[Onakatomi no] Yoshinobu no Ason
[Taira no] Kanemori
[Ki no] Tsurayuki
[Fujiwara no] Ise (Lady Ise)
[Yamabe no] Akahito
Henjo Sojo
[Ki no] Tomonori
Ono no Komachi
[Fujiwara no] Chunagon Asatada
[Fujiwara no] Takamitsu
[Mibu no] Tadamin
[Onakatomi no] Yorimoto no Ason
[Minamoto no] Shigeyuki
[Minamoto no] Saneakira (also pronounced Nobuaki) no Ason
[Minamoto no] Shitagau
[Kiyowara no] Motosuke
[Fujiwara no] Motozane (sometimes listed as Fujiwara no Motoyoshi)
[Fujiwara no] Nakafumi
[Mibu no] Tadami
Nakatsukasa


The poem by Chunagon Asatada reads as follows:

Ten thousand ages:
I pray that this day may see
their beginning -
now only the gods can know
where we will be going next

Yorozu yo no
hajime to kyo o
inoriokite
ima yukusue wa
kami zo kazoemu

while that by Korenori goes:

Hills of Yoshino:
on your slopes the white snows must
be lying deep -
in our ancient capital
the days grow ever colder

Miyoshino no
yama no shirayuki
tsumoru rashi
furusato samuku
narimasaru nari


1 Felice Fischer (ed.), The Arts of Hon'ami Koetsu (Philadelphia, 2000), cat. no. 39; other sets are in the British Library (Shelfmark Or. 75.e.13), the New York Public Library (Spencer Collection), the Art Institute of Chicago, and other public collections

2 For some examples, see Kyoto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan [Kyoto National Museum], Nihon no senshoku: waza to bi [Japanese Textiles: Beauty and Skill] (Kyoto, 1985), cat. nos. 67-70; see also Metropolitan Museum of Art, Momoyama: Japanese Art in the Age of Grandeur (New York, 1975), cat. nos. 50-53

3 Kyoto Kokuritsu Hakubutsukan [Kyoto National Museum], Hana, Miyako no modo, kimono no jidai [Kyoto Style: Trends in 16th-19th Century Kimono] (Kyoto, 1999) , cat. nos. 38 ff.

4 Mishima Taisha Homotsukan [Mishima-Taisha Museum of Art Treasures], Zuroku [Illustrated catalogue] (Mishima, Shizuoka Prefecture, 1998), cat. no. 70

5 Richard L. Wilson, The Art of Ogata Kenzan: Persona and Production in Japanese Ceramics (New York and Tokyo, 1991), pp. 40-46

6 Miyeko Murase, Emaki: Narrative Scrolls from Japan (New York, 1983), cat. nos. 22-25


Accompanied by a University of Oxford Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit Report on Radiocarbon Dating by Accelerator Mass Spectrometer dated 6 March 2000 giving a result of 283 +/- 37 years BP (1950)