Cloth Bag with Cords and Plum Blossoms

Cloth Bag with Cords and Plum Blossoms is a surimono by Ryuryukyo Shinsai in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, dated to around 1800. The print isolates a small drawstring pouch tied with decorative cords and accompanied by a sprig of plum blossoms, a pairing that reads at once as practical object portrait and seasonal emblem. Working in the surimono tradition associated with the Hokusai school after his earlier study under Tawaraya Sori, Shinsai uses this kind of intimate still life to frame poems from kyoka clubs whose members commissioned the sheet for private distribution. The pouch's woven or printed textile pattern is rendered with careful attention to the play of cord against fabric, and surimono printers typically used embossing and metallic pigments to mark the textures of brocade, knot, and tassel. The accompanying plum branch grounds the composition in the New Year season, when many surimono were exchanged, and signals the renewal themes that the verses would explore. Compared to commercial nishiki-e of the same years, the palette and key block work here remain quiet and deferential, the colors keyed to the textiles rather than to dramatic contrast. The Metropolitan Museum of Art preserves the print as part of its substantial Shinsai holdings, where it can be studied beside his other object still lifes for an unusually clear view of how the Hokusai school adapted bird-and-flower lyricism to the world of luxury accessories.