Prayers for Rain, from the series Seven Elegant Komachi (late 1790s): Art, History and Details

Prayers for Rain, from the series Seven Elegant Komachi (late 1790s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, c. 1754–1806).

The work and its context

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

Seven plays based on legends from the life of 9th-century poet Ono no Komachi served as the source for this print series. In the play, Komachi shelters from the rain under an umbrella held by her servant. In this print, an elegantly coiffed mother and child replace the poet and her servant.

Object facts

• Title: Prayers for Rain, from the series Seven Elegant Komachi
• Date: late 1790s
• Creator attribution: Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, c. 1754–1806)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 38.2 x 25.2 cm (15 1/16 x 9 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1940.1030

Collection credit

Bequest of James Parmelee

Further reading listed by the museum

• Milliken, William M., Henry S. Francis, Howard Hollis, Gertrude Underhill, Silvia A. Wunderlich, and Nell G. Sill. “The Bequest of James Parmelee.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 28, no. 2 (February 1941): 15–31.

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.