Popular Designs of Combs and Tobacco Pipes (Imayō kushi kiseru hinagata)

Popular Designs of Combs and Tobacco Pipes (Imayo kushi kiseru hinagata) is an illustrated design book by Katsushika Hokusai preserved at the Harvard Art Museums. Rather than functioning as a landscape or figure series, this volume serves as a pattern book aimed at artisans, craftsmen, and discerning consumers in Edo who wished to commission or appreciate fashionable accessories. Hokusai supplies dozens of motifs and finished designs for combs and kiseru, the small metal-and-bamboo pipes used for smoking, ranging from austere geometric arrangements to delicate floral, animal, and narrative scenes. As an Edo ukiyo-e project, the book reveals how deeply print culture intersected with the broader design economy of the period: the same artists who created famous ukiyo-e print compositions also shaped the visual identity of everyday luxury goods. Each page presents a tightly organized array of options, often grouped by theme or season, so that a comb maker or pipe smith could leaf through the book in search of inspiration. The clean line work and careful spacing demonstrate Hokusai's mastery of design economy, where every curve must read clearly when transferred to lacquer, metal, or tortoiseshell. For modern audiences, Imayo kushi kiseru hinagata offers a rare window onto the practical side of ukiyo-e, reminding viewers that Hokusai was not only a maker of pictures but also an arbiter of taste whose ideas circulated through the small, intimate objects of daily life.