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Komachi Washing Her Book of Poems
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Details
- Series
- Seven Fashionable Figures of Ono no Komachi
- Associated place
- Date
- c. 1805 - 1820
- Artist/maker
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Kikukawa Eizan (1787 - 1867) (designer)Ono no Komachi (c. AD 825 – c. 900) (author)
- Associated people
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Koyama Hangorō (active c. 1805 - 1820) (publisher)Ono no Komachi (c. AD 825 – c. 900) (subject)
- Material and technique
- nishiki-e (multi-block) woodblock print, printed with water-based vegetable pigments
- Dimensions
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mount 55.6 x 40.5 cm (height x width)
print 37.8 x 25.3 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.4436
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Further reading
Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 24 August-30 November 2005, Beauties of the Four Seasons, Mitsuko Watanabe, ed. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2005), no. 30 on p. 64, p. 62, illus. p. 65
Glossary (4)
mitate, mitate-e, nishiki-e, vegetable pigments
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mitate
Mitate, or riddle, is a form of visual and literary parody on a classical theme. It required prior knowledge in order to decipher it.
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mitate-e
Mitate-e, or riddle, is a form of visual and literary parody on a classical theme. It required prior knowledge in order to decipher it.
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nishiki-e
Nishiki-e literally means 'brocade pictures' and refers to multi-coloured woodblock prints.
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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
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- 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
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Beauties of the Four Seasons
The Nana-komachi series is a popular topic used by various ukiyo-e artists in a form of mitate. It is based on the seven stories about the celebrated poet Ono no Komachi of the Heian period (794-1192), who was known for her outstanding beauty.
Here a woman, as a mitate of Sōshiarai-Komachi, is reading a book. She wears a kimono with a cherry blossom similar to that of Sōshiarai-Komachi who is in the background in a cartouche, in which she kneels by a bowl, washing away the poem from the sōshi (poem book) to prove that it was her own work and not from an earlier time. Ono no Komachi’s name of Sōshiarai derives from this story.
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