Still Life with a Writing-table

…; purchased from the dealer C.P.J. van der Peet Japanese Prints, Amsterdam, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1982;¹¹Coll. cat. Goslings 1991 en 1995, p. 18, cat. no. 19 by whom donated to the museum, 1991

ObjectNumber: RP-P-1991-449

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

The Essays in Idleness, Tsurezuregusa, is a collection of a large number of rather loose notes and observations written in the 1320s by Yoshida Kenko, a poet of the late Kamakura period (1249-1382). As this appears to be unprecedented in series of prints - except for two earlier surimono series by Shunman and Gakutei - it is impossible to ascertain the number of prints in this series.

For others of the series, see:
Kai wo obou...: Two clams, the interior of one half with a painting of couple in a boat - MFA, 11.25460
Kotaka ni…: Two men and a dog running after a hawk ²²Paul F. Walter Collection of Surimono. Privately Commissioned Japanese Prints. New York: Christie's, 23 October 1992, p. 36.; MFA 11.20600
Onna takami no...: Woman looking in a mirror ³³Keyes, 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. 154.; MFA 11.25452
Tsukushi ni...: Radish and armour ⁴⁴Mirviss, Joan B. and John T. Carpenter, Jewels of Japanese Printmaking: Surimono of the Bunka-Bunsei Era 1804-1830 (Amerika no 3 josei ga atsumeta Bunka, Bunsei no shugyoku no surimono). Tokyo: Ota Memorial Museum of Art & Nihon Keizai Shinbun, 2000, p. 51; McKee, D., Japanese Poetry Prints: Surimono from the Schoff Collection. Ithaca, NY: Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art/Cornell University, 2006, p. 28.; MFA 51.34
Wakaki otoko no...: Flute-playing courtier seen from the back ⁵⁵Japanse prenten 1800-1858 uit de Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis, 1980, p. 60.; MFA 11.25453
Naho XX no saitaru samo koso medetaki kanonare: Two men arm wrestling - MFA 11.25457.

A view into a room with a writing table with several books, a vase of peacock feathers and a lamp. A brazier next to the table.

To be alone, Hitori, from the series Essays in Idleness, Tsurezuregusa

The title of the print is a quotation from Section IX of The Essays in Idleness, Tsurezuregusa:
To be alone by the light of a lamp with some open books and with friends no longer of this world — what could be sadder?

Two poems by Korokuro Funosoro and Juro Aizuru. The first poem continues where the quotation stops. While Kenko, the author of Tsurezuregusa (see below), continues by listing some of the books that comfort him, Funosoro states that:
In Spring, I can even appreciate things at night, for example, the flowers of words on my writing table.

Aizuru's poem reads:
The snow that was there when I studied is now melting and through my window, light still enters.

Issued by the Manjiren
Signature reading: Hokkei

M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 347

M. Forrer, 2013, 'Totoya Hokkei, Still Life with a Writing-table, Japan, c. 1832', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.377895