"Three Boys and a Kite
at New Year's Day"
(descriptive title)
~1890
Comments - A large Shijo
style surimono
for a poet club. It lists a short poem of each club members
for the New Year's Day. Three boys are playing in front of a
large Edo-kite
("Edo-tako", "½‘õ„J"). One of the boy is walking on stilts. The
kite is adorned with a depiction of the widespread story of
the "Rabbit
in the Moon". Despite the "western view" of the red ball
as seen as the Sun, it is indeed the Moon, therfore the night
blue background. The curly waves are to be intended as
'smoke'. The Rabbit is only hinted at behind the curly
'waves'. A large "kadomatsu" tree hints at
the New Year's season.
Japanese Woodblock Surimono - Surimono
are an exclusive subcategory of Japanese wood block prints.
They were privately commissioned works intended to be
distributed to a small audience of friends, colleagues or
like-minded members of a "poetry circle". The most common
surimono style included an image and a poetry verse. Some
surimono depict well-known stories from ancient legend and are
fantastic individual works of art without any calligraphy.
Because of the exclusive nature of surimono, and the fact that
they were commissioned by wealthy individuals, the level of
workmanship was excellent. The designs are stunning, and
usually printed to the highest standards on expensive paper
with fine pigments and embellishments. The carvers and
printers were leaders in their fields. Since surimono were not
sold to a commercial audience the print runs were very small
and original surimono are incredibly rare in the market today.
Series - none
Artist - see
Biography
Signature - Mitsutaka (¹â¶ë), lower right, together with
his red seal (inscribed as ¹â¶ë)
Publisher - no seal (Surimono)
Image Size - 57.5 x 43.5 cm (22 1/4" x 17 1/8")
Condition - single sheet; printed on soft, thick hosho
paper with Silver mica sprinkles; usual folds for this kind
and size of Surimono;