Kuronushi from the series The New Six Immortal Poets (c. 1795): Art, History and Details

Kuronushi from the series The New Six Immortal Poets (c. 1795) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Chōbunsai Eishi (Japanese, 1756–1829).

The work and its context

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

This print shows a courtesan adjusting her hairdo before a mirror as her attendant looks on. In the cartouche next to her is a poem by Ōtomo no Kuronishi, a Heian period courtier celebrated as one of the Six Immortal Poets. His portrait and name appear in the disk-shaped title cartouche. The poem reads: "Mirror Mountain / Has been raised high / To show us all / Our Lord will live a thousand years!" The poem appears in the Anthology of Ancient and Modern Verse (Kokinwakashū) with a note that it was sung at the investiture of the Emperor Daigo (885-930). Here, the courtesan could be perceived as a stand-in for the emperor, making this a rather risqué print.

Object facts

• Title: Kuronushi from the series The New Six Immortal Poets
• Date: c. 1795
• Creator attribution: Chōbunsai Eishi (Japanese, 1756–1829)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 33.4 x 20.5 cm (13 1/8 x 8 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1956.755

Collection credit

The Fanny Tewksbury King Collection

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.