Nagisa Palace from the Tales of Ise (late 1800s): Art, History and Details

Nagisa Palace from the Tales of Ise (late 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Shibata Zeshin (Japanese, 1807–1891).

The work and its context

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

This screen depicts an episode from the Tales of Ise, a 10th-century collection of poems and associated narratives in which the main character composes the following poem while drinking sake and viewing cherry blossoms: If, in this world of ours / All the cherry blossoms / Disappeared / The heart of spring / Might find peace. Our hero relaxes on a shoulder rest, gazing at the flowers, his sake dish before him on a lacquered stand. A plump boy attendant monitors the sake dishes, a ewer at the ready. An associate sits with paper, ink, and brush, poised to record poems.

Object facts

• Title: Nagisa Palace from the Tales of Ise
• Date: late 1800s
• Creator attribution: Shibata Zeshin (Japanese, 1807–1891)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Two-panel folding screen; ink, color, lacquer, and gold on silk
• Dimensions: Image: 175.3 x 190.5 cm (69 x 75 in.); Each side: 162.8 x 88.6 cm (64 1/8 x 34 7/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Folding screen
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1981.2

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Chinese Paintings, Japanese Paintings and Screens: Property of the Estate of Chester Dale Carter; Sale 4509Y; Public Auction, Thursday, December 18, 1980 at 2 P.M. New York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1980.
• Lee, Sherman E. “The Year in Review for 1981.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 69, no. 2 (February 1982): 39–82. Published as: Narihira Viewing the Cherry Blossoms
• Cunningham, Michael R. “Byōbu: The Art of the Japanese Screen.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 71, no. 7 (September 1984): 223–232. Published as: Narihira Viewing the Cherry Blossoms

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.