Snails (c. 1788–89): Art, History and Details

Snails (c. 1788–89) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Nagasawa Rosetsu (Japanese, 1754–1799).

The work and its context

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

In this work, Nagasawa Rosetsu carefully described two snails in a manner known as “earth painting” (doro-e), building up colors mixed with crushed white shells in emulation of the thick brushstrokes of oil paint seen in European painting. A silvery metallic pigment indicates the snails’ trails, glistening along an earthen wall. Notably, one trail has no snail, leaving the viewer to guess why.

Object facts

• Title: Snails
• Date: c. 1788–89
• Creator attribution: Nagasawa Rosetsu (Japanese, 1754–1799)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink, color, and metallic pigments on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 114.3 x 40.6 cm (45 x 16 in.); Overall: 200.7 x 54 cm (79 x 21 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1998.5

A detail from the museum

Rosetsu was an independent painter active in Kyoto, Japan's cultural capital, known for his visual wit and superb range of technical skills.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Cleveland Museum of Art, “Painting by 18th-century Italian Master Gaetano Gandolfi among Works Added to CMA Collection,” March 24, 1998, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives.

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.