Fan, Bag and Incense-Tube

Fan, Bag and Incense-Tube is a surimono by Ryuryukyo Shinsai in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A pupil of Katsushika Hokusai and a designer within the Hokusai school, Shinsai produced many still life surimono in which a handful of personal accessories are arranged as a portrait of cultivated taste. Here a folding fan, a small drawstring bag, and an incense-tube are gathered together. Each object carried specific associations: the fan with social gesture and seasonal use, the bag with the carrying of small treasures and writing implements, and the incense tube with the appreciation of fine scents, a refined pastime among urban townsmen and women in late Edo-period Japan. Shinsai composes the items with restrained precision, allowing the linear shape of the fan to play off the curved volumes of the bag and tube. As a surimono, the sheet displays the technical refinements unique to that format: embossed blindprinting (karazuri) in the patterned fabric of the bag, soft color gradations across the painted fan, and discreet metallic pigments highlighting the tube's fittings. Surimono were commissioned by kyoka poetry circles for private distribution at the New Year and other occasions, and the verses inscribed on the sheet would have responded to the seasonal connotations of these accessories. The print typifies Shinsai's gift for transforming a small grouping of personal items into a richly suggestive emblem of urbane sensibility. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/54721.