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The Poet Harumichi no Tsuraki, from the series A True Mirror of the Imagery of Chinese and Japanese Poets

Artist/Maker (Japanese, 1760–1849)
Date1833–34
MediumColor woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
DimensionsVertical nagaōban; overall: 20 3/16 × 8 15/16 in. (51.3 × 22.7 cm)
Credit LineMary A. Ainsworth Bequest
PortfolioA True Mirror of the Imagery of Chinese and Japanese Poets (Shika shashinkyo)
Object number1950.736
Status
Not on view
More Information
An aristocrat, accompanied by two attendants, pauses on a bridge, gazing at the flowing water below. The inscription above identifies him as the Heian period poet Harumichi no Tsuraki 春道列樹 (?–920). The print illustrates a poem that appears in the well-known imperial anthology Kokin Wakashū 古今和歌集, or Collection of Japanese Poems of Ancient and Modern Times. The text, a meditation on the passage of time, reads:

Swift is their passage
as the flow of the Asuka [Tomorrow River];
the long months I spend saying,
yesterday, today, tomorrow.
Exhibition History
Ukiyo-e Prints from the Mary Ainsworth Collection
  • Chiba City Museum of Art, Chiba, Japan (April 13, 2019 - May 25, 2019 )
  • Shizuoka City Museum of Art, Shizuoka, Japan (June 8, 2019 - July 28, 2019 )
  • Osaka City Museum of Fine Arts, Osaka, Japan (August 10, 2019 - September 29, 2019 )
Ukiyo-e Prints from the Mary Ainsworth Collection
  • Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (January 14, 2020 - December 6, 2020 )
Collections
  • Asian
This record was created from historic documentation and may not have been reviewed by a curator. Noticed a mistake? Have some extra information about this object? Please contact us.