Kuniyoshi 国芳: Poetess Shushiki Attaching her Haiku Poem to a Cherry Branch

Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861)
Title: Vesper bells at Ueno (Ueno no bansho, 上野晩鐘)

Series: Virtuous Women for the Eight Views (Kenjo hakkei, 賢女八景)

Date: 1842-43

The poetess Shûshiki looking at the poem she attached to a cherry tree at Ueno. Ome Shushiki (1668-1725) was a student of the Basho disciple Kikaku. She made her name as a haiku poet at the tender age of thirteen, when she wrote a poem about cherry blossoms at a temple and fastened it to the branch of a tree and impressed the temple abbot.

The Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers developed in 11th c. China as a formalized series of landscape paintings; the concept was imported by the Japanese in numerous landscape series. Here, the eight 

Condition: Excellent impression and color. Good condition. Trimming at top and left and some minor pigment transfer of red on poetry cartouche. Dimensions: 35 x 12 cm
Publisher: Iba-ya Sensaburô
Literature: See British Museum collection, Honolulu Museum of Art. Robinson 1982 S21.4; Bidwell 1968, no. 85.  Signature: Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi ga

SKU: KUY626