Incense Boxes with a Wrapping Cloth1808
Kubo Shunman designed this in 1808, aged 51. It is now at The Met in New York. More about this work
About this work
Kubo Shunman designed this in 1808, aged 51. It is now at The Met in New York.
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.
Kubo Shunman
Japanese, 1757–1820
Shunman was both an artist and a writer of kyōka, or comic verse, and much of his work served the poetry circles of Edo. Their members commissioned surimono, privately issued woodblock sheets pairing poems with images and often finished with metallic pigments and embossing. Shunman excelled at quiet still lifes of objects such as writing sets, tobacco pouches and incense utensils, and he also illustrated books of verse.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Ukiyo-e
Japanese woodblock prints of the floating world: actors, courtesans, landscapes and the sea.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met 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
- JP2113
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Prints
- Department
- Asian Art
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
Report this work
More by Kubo Shunman
All their works
Close in colour
