葛飾北斎筆 鶏と木材鶏図|Album of Sketches by Katsushika Hokusai and His Disciples
Katsushika Hokusai
19th century · Album of ninety-seven leaves; ink and color on paper · Asian Art
The brush-inscribed text between the two roosters explains the odd dynamic of this work: A drawing of a real rooster coming to fight the wooden rooster made by Suminawa. (Suminawa ga tsukereru ki no niwatori makoto no niwatori kitaritekeru zu) This unsigned drawing is virtually identical to a woodblock-printed illustration published in the popular novel The Tale of the Craftsman of Hida (Hida no takumi monogatari, 1809), authored by Rokujuen Meshimori (1753–1830) and illustrated by Hokusai. The episode of the book represented here relates the story of the master carpenter Suminawa of Hida, who created a carved bird so lifelike that another bird mistook it for a real one. It is assumed that this is a preparatory drawing from which the hanshita-e (block drawing) was made.
- Artist
- Katsushika Hokusai
- Date
- 19th century
- Medium
- Album of ninety-seven leaves; ink and color on paper
- Culture
- Japan
- Department
- Asian Art
- Credit line
- Charles Stewart Smith Collection, Gift of Mrs. Charles Stewart Smith, Charles Stewart Smith Jr., and Howard Caswell Smith, in memory of Charles Stewart Smith, 1914
