Minamoto no Nakakuni Visits Lady Kogō (late 1600s): Art, History and Details

Minamoto no Nakakuni Visits Lady Kogō (late 1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Kiyohara Yukinobu (Japanese, 1643–1682).

The work and its context

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

An aristocrat rides up a path to a residence where a woman plays a koto, a stringed instrument. The central composition is flanked on the right by a day-lit spring scene, and on the left by a nocturnal autumnal scene. The triptych presents an episode from The Tale of the Heike in which Minamoto no Nakakuni is sent by the emperor to look for Lady Kogō.

Object facts

• Title: Minamoto no Nakakuni Visits Lady Kogō
• Date: late 1600s
• Creator attribution: Kiyohara Yukinobu (Japanese, 1643–1682)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Triptych of hanging scrolls; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Overall: 180 x 59.4 cm (70 7/8 x 23 3/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1992.77

A detail from the museum

The Tale of the Heike chronicles the conflict between the Taira (Heike) and Minamoto (Genji) families in the late 12th century.

Collection credit

Bequest of Harley C. Lee and Elizabeth K. Lee

Further reading listed by the museum

• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1992.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 80, no. 2 (February 1993): 38–79.

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.