A Picture by Hishikawa Moronobu: Woman with a Set of Poem Cardsmid 1820s
The poem by Ganjotei Shirataka reads: Friendly, amid the starry forest of the plum branches the voice of the warbler singing of the sun and moon. More about this work
About this work
The poem by Ganjotei Shirataka reads: Friendly, amid the starry forest of the plum branches the voice of the warbler singing of the sun and moon.
Text from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
How it was made
- Surimono
- Privately commissioned Japanese prints, often New Year greetings, made in small runs on thick paper with metallic pigments and blind embossing, and usually paired with poems.
- Colour woodblock print
- In Japan these were a team effort. The artist drew the design, a carver cut it into cherry-wood blocks, one block for each colour, and a printer brushed on the pigment and rubbed each sheet by hand. Full-colour prints of this kind were called nishiki-e, “brocade pictures”, from the 1760s on.
Totoya Hokkei
Japanese, 1780–1850
Ukiyo-e
Japanese woodblock prints of the floating world: actors, courtesans, landscapes and the sea.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Cleveland Museum of Art has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 1985.324
- Credit
- Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
- Type
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
Report this work
Close in colour
