Court Lady at Her Writing Table From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 3
- Date:
- ca. 1820s
- Medium:
- Part of an album of woodblock prints (surimono); ink and color on paper
- Source:
- Metropolitan Museum of Art
Yashima Gakutei created this intimate composition of a court lady seated at her writing table around 1820, contributing it to volume 3 of the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), one of the most celebrated anthologies of surimono assembled in the early nineteenth century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds an example.
The court lady, dressed in the long-layered robes that evoke Heian-period elegance, is shown either preparing to write or pausing mid-composition at a low writing table set with paper, inkstone, and brush. Gakutei depicts her with the slightly inclined head and graceful hand gestures that the Hokusai school used to suggest concentration and inner life without dramatic exaggeration. Her hair flows in classical taregami style, sweeping behind her shoulders.
Gakutei trained under Totoya Hokkei in the Hokusai school, and the print exemplifies that lineage's interest in serenely poised feminine subjects drawn from Japan's classical literary past. Katsushika Hokusai and his pupils frequently revisited Heian court themes as material for surimono, both because such imagery flattered the cultural pretensions of kyōka poetry clubs and because the long, decorative robes suited the surimono's lavish printing techniques. The Metropolitan's impression preserves traces of metallic pigments and the careful overprinting that defines high-quality work in the medium.
The Spring Rain Collection itself was a deluxe compilation of surimono assembled and rebound by collectors after their original circulation, providing the modern record of many of Gakutei's finest designs. Volume 3 includes this court lady alongside related literary subjects. The composition demonstrates Yashima Gakutei's lifelong project of marrying Hokusai school design discipline to the cultivated, allusive intellectual world of Edo poetry circles, rendered here in a quiet portrait of literary creation itself.
Court Lady at Her Writing Table From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 3 was created by Yashima Gakutei (八島岳亭) in ca. 1820s.
Court Lady at Her Writing Table From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 3 depicts spring and rain.
