Still Life with Fishes

Data

Still Life with Fishes
Print   (Part of the set: Akashi-ban Surimono)

Totoya Hokkei
Unknown
1890s

00036-020
https://mokuhankan.com/collection/index.php?id_for_display=00036-020

Print is Public Domain; Photography is:   Creative Commons License

Description

This print is also known as "Kanagawa", and is from the series Enoshima kikô, jûrokuban tsuzuki (江島記行 十六番続, "Souvenirs of Enoshima, a Set of Sixteen"). It depicts an octopus, red snapper, flounder, pufferfish and crab, delicacies of the sea that Kanagawa was famous for. Characters reading "Hanesawa", the name of an inn in Kanagawa, have been painted in red on the tray. Evidently the seafood pictured was served up at the inn - perhaps Hokkei himself stayed there. Fourteen of the sixteen prints in the series have been discovered, with two still missing. Karazuri blind-embossing has been delicately used on the suction cups of the octopus's tentacles and the tray. The print includes a spring kyôka for the Manji poetry club.

[Dave's note: Whenever I see one of these prints containing the name of a real place - in this case the inn's name on the lacquer tray - I can't help but wonder if this is 'product placement'. Was there a quid pro quo involved between the inn owner and the poetry group who commissioned this? We'll never know ...]

Another Search

Nine-tailed Fox
Painting of a Peacock