Item from the Mokuhankan Flea Market

Earthworm and Cricket

Size: 26.5cm by 38.0cm (10.43 in by 14.96 in) | Enlargement | Shipping Code: [L] ?

Designer: Kitagawa Utamaro

Era: Early Showa | Currency: $ / £ / €

Price: ¥ 12,000$ 96.00£ 70.00€ 82.00 [Item has been sold]

Description: The print is from Utamaro's series Pictures of Insects (Ehon Mushi Erami); a collection of 15 designs of insects and other garden creatures that pairs various insects with humorous or suggestive poems (kyoka) reflecting on human behavior. The poems were written by Ishikawa Masamochi. In this scene, an earthworm winds itself around the base of a green leafy plant, while above, a cricket perches lightly atop another leaf.

The accompanying kyoka on the left reads:

Not knowing day or night, I am like an earthworm wandering around in the darkness of love.

I am like the leg of a cricket, my heart so easily broken.

These verses use the earthworm and cricket as metaphors for emotional vulnerability and the confusion of love—one blindly groping through uncertainty, the other fragile and easily harmed.

This version is a post-war reproduction by the Ukiyoe Hanga Kankokai.

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