Chokaro-Sixteen Charming Figures of Female Hermits

Category

Library Item

Item no

322

Title

Sennin Chokaro from the series 'Sixteen Charming Figures of Female Hermits and Devotees' (Enshi juroku josen)

Description

A woman in a black and blue striped kimono pours sake into a bottle. Behind her a fan decorated with a horse design rests against a candle stand. The inset depicts Sennin Chokaro, one of eight Taoist Immortals, who was believed to have carried a magic horse in a gourd. When Chokaro needed to travel he would release this horse from the gourd and command it to run for days on end. This smaller image is framed with auspicious lingzhi fungus.

Artist / maker

Kuniyoshi

Date

1847

Size

37 x 25.5 cm.

Type

Wood cut

Location

Art and Design Library

The following information appears on the print:

Signature: Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi ga
Censor's Seals: Yoshimura and Muramatsu (1847 - 1848)

From a series of 16 prints titled 'Sixteen Charming Figures of Female Hermits and Devotees' ('Enshi Juroku Josen')

This print is a parody or 'mitate' of a classical story. Whereas Chokaro contained a horse in a gourd, the courtesan's bottle contains sake. Sake is being equated with the elixir of immortality.

This is one of a set of 50 prints 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.

Exhibitions with this item

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Related images

Related subjects

Clothing and dress > Accessories > Fans

Clothing and dress > Garments > Kimonos

Places > Asia > Japan

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