…; collection Hans de Winiwarter (1865-1949), Liège; collection Edmond de Winiwarter (1879-1951), Ben-Ahin, near Liège (L. 1389);…; purchased from the dealer Bernard Haase, London, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1985;¹¹Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 41, cat. no. 81 by whom donated to the museum, 1991

Object number: RP-P-1991-576

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

Various similar designs featuring samples of precious foreign cloth or other antiquities are known, based on the early treatise on antiquities, the Soken kisho of 1781. This design was not identified in the Soken kisho, however. Kubota Shunman designed one such series entitled Famous Leathers, Ditto Medicine Cases, Netsuke, Meibutsu kawa onajiku inro onajiku netsuke (see Boisgirard²²Boisgirard, Claude and Axel de Heeckeren, Très importante collection de 750 surimono, de calendriers, de nagaye, et d’oban. Paris, Drouot, 12-15 décembre 1977. Paris: 1977, pp. 704-705. and Ota³³Fujisawa Morihiko korekushon surimono o chuushin to shite (The Fujisawa Morihiko Collection: with a Stress on Surimono) Tokyo: Ota Memorial Museum of Art, 1998, pp. 178-82.).

Two samples of patterned cloth or leather, the circular piece on the right with a repeated hexagonal pattern called katsuragi, the square piece on the left: featuring a dragon on a gold ground.

Masayuki was the early name of Ryuryukyo Shinsai, later a student of Hokusai. It is difficult to establish if this is an early design by him that is still signed with his own name and not with Shinsai, his name as a print designer.

Two poems by ?ro? Uchichika and Shitaro Yoshiki(?).

Issued by the poets
Seal reading: Masayuki

M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 14

M. Forrer, 2013, 'Masayuki, Samples of Patterned Cloth, Japan, 1796', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200467446