Kintoki Chasing a Demon

anonymous, c. 1815 - c. 1820

Kintoki, ook wel bekend als Kintarô, werpt bonen om een demon te verjagen. Boven zijn hoofd hangt een slinger met papieren Nieuwjaarswensen. Traditiegetrouw wordt het huis op Oud Jaar schoongemaakt, daarbij worden er ook bonen in alle hoeken gegooid om geluk binnen te halen en demonen te verdrijven.

  • Artwork typeprint, surimono
  • Object numberRP-P-1995-299
  • Dimensionsheight 188 mm x width 248 mm
  • Physical characteristicsnishikie, with metallic pigments

anonymous

Kintoki Chasing a Demon

Japan, Japan, c. 1815 - c. 1820

Provenance

…; purchased from the dealer Hasegawa, Japan, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1992;1Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 70, cat. no. 159 by whom donated to the museum, 1995

Object number: RP-P-1995-299

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

The artist

Biography

For a somewhat similar design by Hokuto(?), cf. Keyes.2Keyes, Roger S., The Art of Surimono. Privately Published Japanese Woodblock Prints and Books in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, 2 vols. London: Sotheby’s Publications, 1985, p. 367. Judging from the printing technique, this design probably derives from Osaka. However, the poet Tachibana no Suzunari is an Edo poet.

Entry

Kintoki dressed in formal attire with court-trousers chasing away a demon, oni, by throwing beans from a rice-measure on an offering stand. At top right a twisted straw rope, shimenawa, with paper slips, gohei, orange leaves, daidai, and ferns, urajiro.

Kintoki, also Kintaro, the posthumous child of Sakata no Kurando, was raised in the Ashigara Mountains by his mother Yaegiri, commonly known as Yamauba. He is recognisable from the large character Kin on his clothing.

The ritual house cleaning on New Year's Eve - a task mostly performed by women - also required that the master of the house throw beans in all the corners while calling 'Luck come in, demons go out', 'Fuku wa uchi oni wa soto', which is the subject of this print. The twisted straw rope above the figures seems to include an indication of the long and short months, but how they should be interpreted as a means for dating this print could not be established.

One poem by Tachibana no Suzunari [1752-1836, possibly identical to Fukurindo Suzunari, family name Tachibanaya Choemon].3Kano, Kaian (ed.), Kyoka jinmei jisho (Dictionary of Names of Kyoka Poets). Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1977 (1928), p. 106.
The poem reads:
It is the wild crows that force open the door of heaven - pulling a dark face, Spring follows.

Issued by the poet
Unsigned

Literature

M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 218

Citation

M. Forrer, 2013, 'anonymous, Kintoki Chasing a Demon, Japan, c. 1815 - c. 1820', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200382616

(accessed 7 December 2025 00:11:19).

Footnotes

  • 1Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 70, cat. no. 159
  • 2Keyes, Roger S., The Art of Surimono. Privately Published Japanese Woodblock Prints and Books in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, 2 vols. London: Sotheby’s Publications, 1985, p. 367.
  • 3Kano, Kaian (ed.), Kyoka jinmei jisho (Dictionary of Names of Kyoka Poets). Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1977 (1928), p. 106.