Still Life With Primula in Flower

Totoya Hokkei (mentioned on object), 1823

Een porseleinen kom met deksel en een pot met bloeiende primula. Op de voorgrond een ivoren standaard voor een shamisen (Japans snaarinstrument). Rechts de Bungo pruimenbloesem tegen een achtergrond met wolkenpatroon. Met drie gedichten.

  • Artwork typeprint, surimono
  • Object numberRP-P-1991-472
  • Dimensionsheight 208 mm x width 184 mm
  • Physical characteristicsnishikie, with metallic pigments and blindprinting

Totoya Hokkei

Still Life With Primula in Flower

Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan, 1823

Provenance

…; purchased from the dealer Hotei Japanese Prints, Leiden, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1983;1Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 19, cat. no. 21 by whom donated to the museum, 1991

Object number: RP-P-1991-472

Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse


The artist

Biography

Totoya Hokkei (1780-1850) was a pupil of Katsushika Hokusai, although he was first trained in the Kano painting tradition and used the art-names Kyosai and Aoigaoka. He was one of the most prolific designers of surimono in the 1820s and early 1830s, and also illustrated numerous collections of kyoka poetry.


Entry

A porcelain bowl with lid and a pot of primroses. In the foreground an ivory shamisen bridge.

The Bungo Plum, Bongo ume, from A Series for the Hanazono Poetry Club, Hanazono bantsuzuki.

Bungo Province is located in the north of the island of Kyushu.

Three poems by Gangyokudo Tatsuo, Asahien Umeteru [not identical to Kaikyokuen Umeteru in Kano,2Kano, Kaian (ed.), Kyoka jinmei jisho (Dictionary of Names of Kyoka Poets). Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1977 (1928), p. 25. and Oseiken Umekane.

The poem by Umekane reads:
Enumerating the plums of the various provinces of Japan, those of Buzen and Bungo differ from crimson like the ink used in the First Writing of the New Year.

Issued by the Hanazonoren
Signature reading: Hokkei


Literature

M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 315


Citation

M. Forrer, 2013, 'Totoya Hokkei, Still Life With Primula in Flower, Japan, 1823', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200473081

(accessed 9 December 2025 15:32:47).

Footnotes

  • 1Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 19, cat. no. 21
  • 2Kano, Kaian (ed.), Kyoka jinmei jisho (Dictionary of Names of Kyoka Poets). Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1977 (1928), p. 25.