Waves (late 1700s-early 1800s): Art, History and Details

Waves (late 1700s-early 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Nakamura Hōchū (Japanese, d. 1819).

The work and its context

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

Nakamura Hōchū painted waves on this handheld fan to bring coolness to the mind of its bearer. While fragile paper fans are often used for a single season, this one was cherished for its design. Someone carefully removed it from its folding apparatus and converted it into a hanging scroll for occasional enjoyment in an alcove.

Object facts

• Title: Waves
• Date: late 1700s-early 1800s
• Creator attribution: Nakamura Hōchū (Japanese, d. 1819)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: fan painting mounted as a hanging scroll; ink and color with gold on paper
• Dimensions: Image: 39.8 x 53 cm (15 11/16 x 20 7/8 in.); Overall: 126.4 x 61.3 cm (49 3/4 x 24 1/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Fan painting
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1999.90

A detail from the museum

Nakamura Hōchū took inspiration for his work from the painter Ogata Kōrin.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Sims, Lowery Stokes. The persistence of geometry: form, content, and culture in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2006.

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.