Hotei

Category

Library Item

Item no

18959

Title

Hotei

Description

Hotei is one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune in Japan, representing contentment and wisdom. He is particularly associated with his 'cloth bag' (the literal meaning of his name), into which he put all the things he found on his travels.

Artist / maker

Kano, Tosen Nakanobu

Date

1845

Size

28.8 x 14.5 cm

Type

Ink and colour; Mixed media

Location

Art and Design Library

From an album of miniature hanging scrolls:

The first three works in the album are a triptych of Hotei flanked by bamboo and plum tree.

This album comprises 76 pages of miniature paintings (and some calligraphies), the majority by artists of the Kano lineage, who worked for the ruling military regime. Each work is signed and sealed in miniature, and has been given a full brocade mounting as if it were a hanging scroll.

Information provided by Dr Rosina Buckland (National Museum of Scotland).

This album was donated to Edinburgh City Libraries by Marie Ferguson Dyer in honour of her father Henry Dyer. Dyer was a Scottish engineer who became the first Principal of the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo in 1872.

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