Carp Ascending a Waterfall (early or mid-1830s): Art, History and Details

Carp Ascending a Waterfall (early or mid-1830s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Keisai Eisen (Japanese, 1790–1848).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

In Asian lore the carp is associated with good fortune and perseverance. Although the carp lives primarily in quiet waters, its symbolic meanings have led to a Japanese design convention of showing the fish arching upward, often mounting waterfalls, as in this print.

Object facts

• Title: Carp Ascending a Waterfall
• Date: early or mid-1830s
• Creator attribution: Keisai Eisen (Japanese, 1790–1848)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 72.4 x 24.2 cm (28 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1940.1049

Collection credit

Bequest of James Parmelee

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hollis, Howard. "The Bequest of James Parmelee." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 28, no. 2 (February 1941): 15–27.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.