Floating Along in the World of Japanese Prints

November 1910 ~ A Couple from the Kan'ei Era

 

Following on from my last blog post, I've just bought another calendar print. As I mentioned in my last post, elements from the series Hana Moyō (Patterns for Flowers), by Kobayashi Kiyochika, were adapted for use in a woodblock printed calendar that was published to advertise the Deer and Stag brand of the Kawamata Silk Refining Company of Yokohama in 1910. The design I've just bought is that for the month of November.

You may remember that it was the main subject of The Tenpō Era triptych of 1896 that was adapted for the December calendar sheet of 1910. For the November sheet, elements of Kiyochika's triptych for The Kan'ei to Shōhō Era (see image below) have been adapted for the vertical calendar print, but this time two figures have been taken from the background of the triptych; the main subject of the original triptych has been ignored.

If you compare the figures pictured in the calendar print above with the couple shown in the original triptych below (see image right for detail), you can see that, whilst they remain essentially the same characters, a few changes were necessary in order to transform the figures from being a small part of the original large composition to being the sole focus of the smaller one of 1910.

According to the text alongside the title cartouche, the woman depicted in the above triptych is the courtesan Takao. Eleven separate women of the Miuraya, one of the most famous bordellos of the pleasure quarter, took the name Takao during the seventeenth to mid eighteenth centuries, and each one was famous for a different reason. Takao I is sometimes portrayed with a procession that includes a wet nurse and child,¹ so she seems to be the one referred to here.

The poem included alongside the title cartouche is from the poetry anthology Hyakunin isshu (One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets). It is by Mibu no Tadami and goes:

Koi su tefu Waga na wa madaki Tachi ni keri Hito shirezu koso Omoi someshi ga.

Yes, I am in love. They were talking about me Before daylight, Although I began to love Without knowing it.2

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¹ Lindsey, William R. Lindsey, Fertility and Pleasure: Ritual and Sexual Values in Tokugawa Japan, 2007.
² This translation is by Kenneth Rexroth. One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, published in 1964.

December 1910 ~ A Courtesan of the Tenpō Era

 

In 1896 the series of triptychs entitled Hana Moyō (Patterns for Flowers), by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), was published. Each design featured a beautiful woman from a specific historical period set against a distant background scene. In 1910, elements of the designs from this series were adapted for use in a woodblock printed calendar that was published to advertise the Kawamata Silk Refining Company of Yokohama. Specifically, it was published to advertise the Deer and Stag brand, which was the most highly praised of the Kawamata firm's fabrics. I recently received the design for December as a Christmas present, and here it is: 

The text at the bottom of the print tells us that Deer and Stag pure silk 'surpasses all others in its refining method, shows excellent lustre when dyed or printed,' and 'suffers no change, no matter how long it may be kept'. The firm, established by Kutsuna Korejiro in 1899, was highly thought of; following the Anglo-Japanese exhibition held in London in 1910, both English and French silk dealers were eager to buy it, but Kutsuna refused to sell.

The design from Hana Moyō which was adapted to form the subject for December in the Kawamata calendar was the triptych depicting a courtesan from The Tenpō Era (1830-1844), which can be seen below. 

The courtesan is shown before a background scene of men making their way along Naka-no-chō, the famous central boulevard of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter. The courtesan's face and butterfly hairstyle, including that plethora of heavy pins, are the same in both the original triptych and the calendar sheet, but, as you can see, her outer robe and sash were adapted to fit the vertical format of the calendar print.

We're Having a Ball

 

Calendar print for 1910, by Hashimoto Chikanobu (1838–1912), originally published in 1897 as part of the series entitled True Beauties (Shin bijin).

If you're a regular visitor to this blog, you'll probably know that I have a thing for advertising ephemera from the 19th to the early 20th century. I am always on the lookout for Japanese prints that were issued to advertise a product, and I recently came across the one above, which was taken from a woodblock printed calendar published for the Kawamata Silk Refining Company of Yokohama in 1910. According to the text beneath the young woman, Kawamata pure silk:

Surpasses all others in its refining method.
Shows excellent lustre, when dyed or printed.
Suffers no change, no matter how long it may be kept.

Not only is the young woman wearing pure silk, she's holding a ball decorated with silk thread - an itomari (thread ball), also called a temari (hand ball). Young women and children are often shown playing with these thread balls in Japanese prints, especially in ones showing scenes from the New Year.

Temari, from the series Thirty-Six Images of Beauty (Sanjūrokkasen), by Mizuno Toshikata (1866 - 1908), 1893.

The print above shows three young women playing with a temari that is almost hidden in the pattern of the dress of the young girl standing behind it. They most likely had a bit of a sing-song whilst playing with it, as rhymes and ditties were popular accompaniments to ball games. One such rhyme goes:

Ten ten ten Tenjin-sama no omatsuri ni
Ten ten temari o kai mashita
Ten ten temari wa doko de tsuku
Ume no o-hana no shita de tsuku.

On the festival of Ten ten ten, Tenjin-sama,
I bought a ten ten temari.
Where am I to bounce the ten ten temari?
I am to bounce it under the blooming plum tree.*

Puppy playing with a temari. Surimono by Yanagawa Shigenobu (1787 - 1832), 1826.

Temari were made by wrapping cotton threads around a core of tightly rolled material scraps or paper to form a ball shape, to which was then added a decorative geometrical pattern in silk thread. Smaller ones were used in throwing games; the larger ones were usually made professionally and were bought for display in a household’s tokonoma during festive occasions.**

Another form of decorative ball that you might come across is that made using the kimekomi method. The image below shows one I prepared earlier (and when I say prepared, I mean bought online - it's vintage).  Kimekomi means 'tuck in' in Japanese, and this gives you a clue as to the method of this ball's manufacture. The core of the ball is made from wood or compressed sawdust, with the design being carved into it to allow the fabric pieces to be tucked in to form the desired pattern.

* Taken from 'Two Ball-Bouncing Rhymes from Japan', by Gwladys Hughes, in The Journal of American Folklore (April to June 1950). The Tenjin-sama of the rhyme refers to Sugaware no Michizane, a Heian period politician and scholar. A shrine was erected to his memory following his death and deification, and parents wishing their children to grow up to be scholars prayed to his spirit. The 'ten ten' of the rhyme is added for rhythmical effect.*
** The tokonoma is a raised platform within an alcove, used for the display of flowers, paintings, ceramics, etc.