Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

Category

Library Item

Item no

18982

Title

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro

Artist / maker

Kano, Tan'en Morizane

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:

This is part of a triptych with the previous and following pages. Kakinomoto no Hitomaro was a courtier and poet of the late 8th century, and the most prominent figure in the Man'yoshu anthology. He is revered as one of the Thirty-six Immortals of Poetry, the most accomplished poets in Japanese history.

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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