Sake cup and fan

This 1820 surimono by Totoya Hokkei, catalogued by the Art Institute of Chicago, isolates a lacquer sake cup and a folding fan against the empty ground typical of small-format still lifes in the surimono medium. Such pared-down arrangements were a particular delight of Edo kyoka-e clubs, where the verses inscribed alongside the image relied on the viewer recognizing each object and the dense web of association around it. A sake cup speaks at once of celebration, hospitality and the New Year toast, while a folding fan can evoke the theater, the dance and the cooling pleasures of summer; juxtaposed, the two objects gather a wide range of poetic possibilities that kyoka writers were expected to exploit. As a leading pupil of Katsushika Hokusai and a major figure of the Hokusai school, Hokkei was among the artists most often called upon to design such still-life surimono for poetry clubs and individual patrons. The format of the print encouraged refined material effects: graded ink, embossing on the lacquer surface and metallic pigments to suggest gold or silver decoration on the cup and fan ribs. The Art Institute of Chicago's example anchors the design within an institutional collection, where it can be studied as a representative miniature of the technical and literary luxuries that defined Edo surimono.