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

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Three women watching purple irises, with text from The Tale of Genji

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

    Three ladies are looking at some purple iris growing in water. One lady is sitting and holding a fan and another, on the right, is putting her hand to her collar suggesting slightly hot weather with a sense of summer but it is still sometime chilly as the part of the inscription on the top reads kaze fukeba suzushikute (cooler with wind). The beautifully opened Iris probably refers to the season of the Ayame no settku (Iris Festival or tango no settku) in summer but the hagi (bush clover, one of seven grass of autumn) implies the coming of autumn.

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