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Your galleryOno no Komachi Washing the Book
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Hunt for the hidden calendar: the year’s name on the boy’s sash, then the numbers on the sheet he holds and on the woman’s sleeves.
The ninth-century poet Ono no Komachi was said to have washed a scroll clean of lines a rival had added during a poetry contest. Here a boy about to pour water over a young woman’s writing replays the story in Harunobu’s own day. First made for his series The Seven Fashionable Aspects of Komachi, the design was adapted as a calendar for 1766: the year’s name is on the boy’s sash, the short months on the letter and the long months on her sleeves.
Color woodblock print; chuban · 27.9 × 20.3 cm · Art Institute of Chicago
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Ono no Komachi Washing the Book
- Artist
- Suzuki Harunobu 鈴木 春信 Japanese, 1725 (?)-1770
- Date
- Edo period (1615–1868), 1765/66
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; chuban
- Dimensions
- 27.9 × 20.3 cm (11 × 7 1/2 in.)
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Ukiyo-e c. 1600–1900
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.