鈴木春信画　覗き絡繰り・「高野の玉川　弘法大師」|A Teenage Boy and Girl with a Viewer for an Optique Picture (Nozoki-karakuri); Kōbō Daishi’s Poem on the Jewel River of Kōya (Kōya no Tamagawa: Kōbō Daishi)

Suzuki Harunobu

ca. 1788 · Woodblock print; ink and color on paper · Asian Art

An elegantly dressed teenage boy and girl have been viewing a special type of print designed to create a three-dimensional effect when seen through a viewer with a convex lens known as a nozoki-karakuri (peep box) or Oranda megane (Dutch glasses). The text in the square cartouche is a famous poem by the monk Kōbō Daishi (Kūkai, 774–835) about one of the Six Jewel Rivers, the one in Kii Province (now Wakayama prefecture). The print on the floor visualizes the poem: Wasurete mo kumi ya shitsuran tabibito no Takano no oku no Tamagawa no mizu . [Kii shū meisho] Forgetting the taboo against drinking from it, pilgrims scoop water from the Jewel River in the depths of Mount Kōya. [A famous site in Kii Province] —Trans. John T. Carpenter

Artist

Suzuki Harunobu

Date

ca. 1788

Medium

Woodblock print; ink and color on paper

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1946