Currently not on view
Prancing Figure with Paper Birds,
n.d.
Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎, 1760–1849; born and died Tokyo, Japan
Japanese
Edo period, 1603–1868
y1965-204
Information
Title
Prancing Figure with Paper Birds
Dates
n.d.
Maker
Medium
Framed: ink and color on silk
Dimensions
image: 26.1 x 21.5 cm. (10 1/4 x 8 7/16 in.)
sheet: 31 x 26.3 cm. (12 3/16 x 10 3/8 in.)
mat: 49 x 36.5 cm. (19 5/16 x 14 3/8 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Carl Otto von Kienbusch, Class of 1906, for the Carl Otto von Kienbusch Jr., Memorial Collection
Object Number
y1965-204
Place Made
Asia, Japan
Inscription
Inscribed lower right: 八十五老卍筆
"Hachi-ju-go rō Manji hitsu"
From the brush of Manji, old man of eighty-five [in 1845]
Marks/Labels/Seals
[text unknown], tall rectagular-shaped intaglio, bottom right
(This seal closely matches a Hokusai seal reproduced in Nagata Seiji 葛飾北斎, Hokusai nikuhitsuga taisei 北斎肉筆画大成 (Tokyo: Shōgakkan, 2000), p. 239, fig. 95. The essay on Hokusai’s seals, however, does not seem to indicate what painting the seal is found on, but the inscription is the same as that found on the PUAM painting. Could that seal have been the one on the PUAM painting?)
Description
Figure in three-quarter back view, seen from slightly above, holding a pair of sticks in each hand. A paper bird attached by a string to each stick, of the type that whistles when moved through the air. Figure slightly crouched and in motion, waving the sticks; dressed in blue trousers, plaid jacket (blue and red on gray; green collar or neck-scarf), straw hat. Column of black characters at right, followed by red seal.
Culture
Period
Materials
- "Recent Acquisitions," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 24, no. 2 (1965): p. 26-39., p. 26 (illus.); p. 26
- "Gallery of Far-Eastern Art: given by the Class of 1929," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 25, no. 1/2 (1966): 53., p. 53 (illus.)
- "The Carl Otto von Kienbusch, Jr., Memorial Collection," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, vol. 36, no. 2 (1977): p. 24-32., p. 29
