Mandarin Ducks and Flowering Plants (early or mid-1830s): Art, History and Details

Mandarin Ducks and Flowering Plants (early or mid-1830s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858).

The work and its context

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

In Asian painting, ducks are usually shown in pairs because a male and female mate for life. They symbolize fidelity and tranquility. The presence of another duck is suggested here by the gesture of the bird's head. Notice the variety of brushstrokes and ink tones used to depict the duck's plumage. The bird and flower genre is a popular theme in the paintings and prints of the Kelvin Smith Collection. Kachoga, or bird and flower pictures, became popular among collectors in Japan during the 19th century, due in large part to Hiroshige. Although better known for his landscape prints, Hiroshige made several exceptional prints of birds, plants, and animals that reveal his keen observation of nature.

Object facts

• Title: Mandarin Ducks and Flowering Plants
• Date: early or mid-1830s
• Creator attribution: Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: Overall: 38.2 x 17.1 cm (15 1/16 x 6 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1985.314

Collection credit

The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sotheby's London. Highly Important Japanese Prints, Illustrated Books and Drawings and Fan Paintings, from the Henri Vever Collection: Part II. March 26, 1975.
• Cunningham, Michael R. “Painting the Poetry of the Natural World.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 7 (September 1988): 279–291.

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.