Celebrating the Good Harvest: Felicitations for a Thousand Ages (Nôhônen, Chiyo no kotobuki)
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Source:
- Museum of Fine Arts Boston
- Image courtesy of
- Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Description
A second impression of the Nôhônen harvest felicitation print, this edition may reflect a different print run or a variation in the color blocks used for the composition's celebratory imagery. The subject — giving thanks for agricultural abundance and extending wishes for longevity across a thousand generations — places the print in the category of kotobuki-e, auspicious images exchanged during festivals and the New Year season. Such prints served a social function beyond mere decoration, circulating among merchants, farmers, and their patrons as tokens of goodwill. Kyosai would have invested the composition with the iconographic elements of harvest abundance — overflowing baskets, rice plants heavy with grain, perhaps dancing figures — while his fluid brushwork enlivened what might otherwise have been formulaic congratulatory imagery.
More Prints by Kawanabe Kyosai
from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu)
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Old Picture of the Rashômon Gate (Rashômon no ko zu), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho tsuzuki
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Tsukishimadera Temple in Hyôgo (Hyôgo Tsukishimadera), from the series Scenes of Famous Places along the Tôkaidô Road (Tôkaidô meisho fûkei), also known as the Processional Tôkaidô (Gyôretsu Tôkaidô), here called Tôkaidô meisho no uchi
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from the series One Hundred Pictures by Kyôsai (Kyôsai hyakuzu)
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Frequently Asked Questions
Celebrating the Good Harvest: Felicitations for a Thousand Ages (Nôhônen, Chiyo no kotobuki) was created by Kawanabe Kyosai (河鍋暁斎).