Sima Guang and Shibata Katsuie pairs two famous historical strongmen, one from China and one from Japan, in a surimono Katsushika Hokusai designed around 1821 for the Zakurogaki poetry group. The series Five Sibling Pictures of China and Japan juxtaposes wakan kyodai, or Sino-Japanese twins, asking poets to compose verses that link the two figures across cultures. Sima Guang, the Song-dynasty scholar-statesman, is remembered for breaking a water jar to rescue a drowning child, while Shibata Katsuie, the Sengoku warlord, smashed water vessels to spur his troops to victory. Hokusai's design unites these two acts of decisive water-breaking with characteristic economy, using sharply drawn figures and carefully rendered jars to highlight the parallels. As a privately commissioned surimono, the sheet was printed with extraordinary care on thick paper, often with gold, silver, and embossed detail, giving it a tactile richness rarely matched by commercial Edo ukiyo-e. The work belongs squarely within the ukiyo-e print tradition while serving the connoisseur poetry circles that supported Katsushika Hokusai's most refined work in the 1820s. The Art Institute of Chicago holds this impression, documenting the design as part of his ongoing engagement with East Asian narrative and his ability to compress complex cross-cultural allusions into a single elegant image.
1821
Color woodblock print with metallic pigments; surimono shikishiban
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
1822
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
c. 1832
Color woodblock print; oban
Wakasa Kugushiko
1920
Color woodblock print; oban
Woodblock print
1934
Color woodblock print; oban
n.d.
Woodblock print; ishizuri-e, section of harimaze sheet
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Sima Guang and Shibata Katsuie, from the series "Five Sibling Pictures of China and Japan for the Zakurogaki Group (Zakurogaki-ren goban no uchi wakan e-kyodai)" was created by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) in 1821.
Sima Guang and Shibata Katsuie, from the series "Five Sibling Pictures of China and Japan for the Zakurogaki Group (Zakurogaki-ren goban no uchi wakan e-kyodai)" depicts landscapes.