Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Beauties of the Four Seasons

A full catalogue of the Ashmolean’s collection of Japanese bijinga (beautiful women) prints by Mitsuko Watanabe (published Oxford, 2005).

Beauties of the Four Seasons by Mitsuko Watanabe

Publications online: 54 objects

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Children playing the seven gods of good fortune in a New Year's play

  • Literature notes

    This scene depicts a New Year’s play where children are wearing costumes of the Seven Gods of Fortune who are believed to bring seven happinesses. They are on a Takara-bune (lucky Treasure Ship bringing wealth in the New Year) with the head of a geki (an imaginary bird with white wings) and with the character 'kotobuki' (long life and congratulations) on the sail. Each of the children carries one of the emblems of the Seven Gods, including the youngest child being breast-fed who has the mallet of Daikokuten. The ship is drawn by six women.

    The combination of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune and Takara-bune was a popular theme for the New Year. In the Edo period, prints with this motif were sold at the end of the year as well as during the New Year. People hoped to have a good hatsuyume (first dream of the year) and expectations of happiness for the coming year, by putting Takara-bune prints under their pillow. The designs of shō-chiku-bai (pine, bamboo and plum) as the symbols of felicity are on the kimono of a woman on the right (pine) and of two women on the left side of the ship (bamboo and plum respectively). According to the inscriptions by Utamaro next to his signature, the print was made as his first work of the New Year in the Ox Year (1805), the year before his death.
  • Details

    Series
    Elegant Children’s Treasure Ship
    Associated place
    AsiaJapanHonshūKantōTōkyō prefecture Tōkyō (place of creation)
    AsiaJapanHonshūKantōTōkyō prefecture Tōkyō (place of publication)
    Date
    1805
    Artist/maker
    Kitagawa Utamaro (c. 1753 - 1806) (designer)
    Associated people
    Murataya Jirōbei (active c. 1802 - c. 1805) (publisher)
    Material and technique
    nishiki-e (multi-block) woodblock print, printed with water-based vegetable pigments
    Dimensions
    mount 55.6 x 34.4 cm (height x width)
    print 37.9 x 26 cm (height x width)
    Material index
    Technique index
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, 1952.
    Accession no.
    EAX.4125.c
  • Further reading

    Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 24 August-30 November 2005, Beauties of the Four Seasons, Mitsuko Watanabe, ed. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2005), no. 12 on p. 24, illus. pp. 24-25

Glossary (2)

nishiki-e, vegetable pigments

  • nishiki-e

    Nishiki-e literally means 'brocade pictures' and refers to multi-coloured woodblock prints.

  • vegetable pigments

    Vegetable pigments were used to create coloured dyes for Japanese prints, paintings, and textiles. These pigments often faded over time due to the chemical reactions they underwent.

Location

    • currently in research collection

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Publications online

  • Beauties of the Four Seasons by Mitsuko Watanabe

    Beauties of the Four Seasons

    This scene depicts a New Year’s play where children are wearing costumes of the Seven Gods of Fortune who are believed to bring seven happinesses. They are on a Takara-bune (lucky Treasure Ship bringing wealth in the New Year) with the head of a geki (an imaginary bird with white wings) and with the character 'kotobuki' (long life and congratulations) on the sail. Each of the children carries one of the emblems of the Seven Gods, including the youngest child being breast-fed who has the mallet of Daikokuten. The ship is drawn by six women.

    The combination of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune and Takara-bune was a popular theme for the New Year. In the Edo period, prints with this motif were sold at the end of the year as well as during the New Year. People hoped to have a good hatsuyume (first dream of the year) and expectations of happiness for the coming year, by putting Takara-bune prints under their pillow. The designs of shō-chiku-bai (pine, bamboo and plum) as the symbols of felicity are on the kimono of a woman on the right (pine) and of two women on the left side of the ship (bamboo and plum respectively). According to the inscriptions by Utamaro next to his signature, the print was made as his first work of the New Year in the Ox Year (1805), the year before his death.
Notice

Object information may not accurately reflect the actual contents of the original publication, since our online objects contain current information held in our collections database. Click on 'buy this publication' to purchase printed versions of our online publications, where available, or contact the Jameel Study Centre to arrange access to books on our collections that are now out of print.

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