KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849) POEM BY KIYOHARA NO FUKAYABU | EDO PERIOD, 19TH CENTURY

Okayama Museum, Okayama, 29 October - 23 November 1983

Hokusai, National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne, 21 July - 15 October 2017

S. Nagata, Hokusai Museum (Hokusai Bijutsukan): Tales (Monogatari-e), vol. 5, 2nd ed. (Tokyo, 1990), pl. 147

Okayama Museum, Tokubetsu-ten Hiroshige to Hokusai Rokuju yoshu meishozu-e to Hyakunin isshu uba ge etoki (Sakai Collection), Okayama Museum, Okayama, 29 October - 23 November, exhib. cat. (Okayama, 1983), pl. 19

W. Crothers, T. Kobayashi and J. Berndt, Hokusai, NGV International, Melbourne, 21 July- 15 October 2017, exhib. cat. (Melbourne, 2017) p. 188

For his last single sheet series of woodblock prints, One Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse (Hyakunin isshu uba ga etoki), Katshushika Hokusai looked to an anthology of well-known poems, entitled Hyakunin Isshu (A Hundred Poems by a Hundred Poets), as his source. These poems, based on love and melancholy, were assembled by the thirteenth-century poet Fujiawara no Teika. Hokusai chose to visually recount the poems from the perspective of a fictional elderly nurse. Together with sixty-four preparatory drawings, twenty-seven published prints are known, each exhibiting bold colour and including a cartouche enclosing the relevant verse. The series was commissioned by the publisher Nishimura Yohachi and his firm Eijudo successfully issued five prints before closing down; the additional twenty-two prints were then published by Iseya Sanjiro’s firm Iseri, with the original Eijudo seal continuing to be employed.

The poem in this print is by Kiyohara no Fukayabu.

Natsu no yo wa

Mada yoi nagara

Akenuru wo

Kumo wo izuko ni

Tsuki yadoruran

In the summer night

While the evening still seems here

Lo! the dawn has come

In what region o the clouds

Has the wandering moon found place?

For another impression see The Museum of Replica Handbags s, Boston, accession no. 11.17673