Untitled

Unknown

19th century · Wood, lacquer sprinkled with gold, black lacquer, and shell inlay · Asian Art

With its wooden arched bridge, weirs of rocks in bamboo baskets and riverside willow, this landscape suggests the Bridge at Uji south of Kyoto, a place famed as a site of tragic romance in the Tale of Genji. Here, the novel motif of fireflies in black lacquer with highlights of iridescent shell adds a temporal note of summer evening to the scene.

Artist

Unknown

Date

19th century

Medium

Wood, lacquer sprinkled with gold, black lacquer, and shell inlay

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929