Woman Playing the Flute

Konsai (mentioned on object), c. 1840 - c. 1850

Een fluitspelende vrouw met vleugels en in Chinese kleding landt in een pijnboom. Deze afbeelding verwijst naar het verhaal van Het Verenkleed (Hagoromo), en komt in veel Oost-Aziatische landen voor. Een Boeddhistisch engel landt in een pijnboom op het strand en doet haar vleugels af. Deze worden door een visser gevonden en terugegeven op voorwaarde dat de engel voor hem danst. Dit doet ze en daarna vliegt ze met haar vleugels weer terug naar huis. Met gedichten door verschillende dichters.

  • Artwork typeprint, surimono
  • Object numberRP-P-1991-662
  • Dimensionsheight 384 mm x width 500 mm
  • Physical characteristicsnishikie, with traces of metallic pigments

Konsai

Woman Playing the Flute

Japan, c. 1840 - c. 1850

Provenance

…; purchased from the dealer Johannes Marcus (Kunsthandel Magdalena Sothmann), Amsterdam, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, c. 1983;1Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 66, cat. no. 148 by whom donated to the museum, 1991

Object number: RP-P-1991-662

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

The artist

Biography

Konsai was an occasional amateur designer.

Entry

A lady dressed in Chinese clothing and with wings on her back lands in a pine tree. She is playing the flute.

This scene illustrates the legend of The Feather Robe, Hagoromo, also made into a No play, common in various East-Asian countries. It tells of a Buddhist angel who descended at the pine beach of Miho no Matsubara and took off her feather robe, which was found by a passing fisherman who took it. The angel asked for it back, as she could not fly back to heaven without it. The fisherman returned it on the condition that she performed a dance for him, which she did before returning home.

The design seems to have been copied directly after a shikishiban surimono by Hokusai, signed Hokusai, 'changed his name to', aratame Iitsu hitsu, illustrated in Polster.2Polster, Edythe and Alfred H. Marks, Surimono: Prints by Elbow. Washington, D.C.: Lovejoy Press, 1980, p. 233-1. That design does not include the pine tree seen here.

Yokonagaban surimono such as this, with haiku poems, were probably produced for the Kansai market (the area around Kyoto and Osaka), and were issued from around the mid-19th century, but they are quite difficult to date precisely.

Numerous haiku poems to the left and on the overleaf.

Issued by an unidentified group of haiku poets
Signature reading: Konsai hitsu

Literature

M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 179

Citation

M. Forrer, 2013, 'Konsai, Woman Playing the Flute, Japan, c. 1840 - c. 1850', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200467499

(accessed 11 December 2025 20:40:14).

Footnotes

  • 1Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 66, cat. no. 148
  • 2Polster, Edythe and Alfred H. Marks, Surimono: Prints by Elbow. Washington, D.C.: Lovejoy Press, 1980, p. 233-1.