Set of Sports Designs
Data
Description
This set of match labels depicts twelve (mostly Western) sports being played by skeletons. The two prints at the bottom are also evidently on the theme of death (and not sports), but appear to have been designed by a different artist, and may be from a different set.
Print 1 (top): This print introduces the title of the series, "Twelve Sports in the Land of Happiness", the land of happiness being a place of paradise in Buddhism equivalent to heaven.
Print 2 (leftmost brown print): Soccer.
Print 3 (middle-left brown print): Shotput.
Print 4 (middle-right brown print): Diving.
Print 5 (rightmost brown print): Rugby?
Print 6 (leftmost pink print): Golf.
Print 7 (middle-left pink print): Horse riding.
Print 8 (middle-right pink print): Skiing.
Print 9 (rightmost pink print): Baseball.
Print 10 (leftmost black print): Boxing.
Print 11 (middle-left black print): Tennis.
Print 12 (middle-right black print): Running.
Print 13 (rightmost black print): Javelin.
Print 14 (bottom left print): This print and the print next to it appear to be from a different set on the same theme of death and skeletons. The artist's (or patron's) name, Machida Shian, appears in the right-hand corner, and the poem reads something like: "No one is lost in skin that hides the bones; if skin is torn, we are all just skeletons".
Print 15 (bottom right print): The name Machida Shian is also recorded on this print. The calligraphy reads something like: "Shian is new to design work, but is a skull without a brain".