First of the Right Group: Jewelled Branch (Migi ichiban takara no eda)

First of the Right Group: Jewelled Branch (Migi ichiban takara no eda) is a surimono by Totoya Hokkei, part of a kyoka poetry contest series in which prints were arranged into left and right teams. The Jewelled Branch refers to one of the impossible treasures demanded of the suitors of Princess Kaguya in the classical Heian tale Taketori monogatari: a branch from a tree on Mount Horai whose leaves are silver and whose fruit is gold and gemstones. Hokkei depicts the treasure here as a small, finely worked branch with jeweled fruit, presented as an emblem to head the right team's contributions. The image draws together the literary prestige of the Taketori monogatari with the auspicious symbolism of a wealth-bringing branch, a combination perfectly suited to the kyoka surimono format in which classical references were repackaged as witty New Year and seasonal greetings. As one of the most prolific surimono designers of the Hokusai school, Hokkei specialized in such allusive emblematic subjects, where a single object stood in for a longer narrative known to every cultivated viewer. The print would have been issued in a small private edition with luxury techniques typical of contest surimono, including metallic pigments suggesting gold and silver leaves and blind embossing on the jewels. The sheet is preserved in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which holds an important group of nineteenth-century Japanese surimono. The work shows the way classical literature continued to inform privately published Edo prints, with Hokkei translating the impossible treasures of Princess Kaguya's story into a refined visual emblem for an Edo poetry club.