Rookset

toegeschreven aan Kubota Shunman, 1804

Tabakzsak en een in een doek verpakte pijp. De tabakszak, met een patroon van verschillende soorten fruit, heeft een zilveren sluiting in de vorm van twee ratten, verwijzend naar het jaar van de rat. Met drie gedichten.

  • Soort kunstwerkprent, surimono
  • ObjectnummerRP-P-1991-685
  • Afmetingenblad: hoogte 137 mm x breedte 182 mm
  • Fysieke kenmerkenkleurenhoutsnede; lijnblok in zwart met kleurblokken; metaalpigmenten

Kubota Shunman (attributed to)

Set of Smoking Utensils

Japan, Japan, Japan, Japan, 1804

Provenance

…; purchased from the dealer Hotei Japanese Prints, Leiden, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1991;1Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 53-54, cat. no. 118 by whom donated to the museum, 1991

Object number: RP-P-1991-685

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


The artist

Biography

Kubota Shunman (1757-1820), popularly called Kubo Shunman, was a pupil of Kitao Shigemasa who was also strongly influenced by Torii Kiyonaga and Katsukawa Shuncho. He created an attractive blend of the various ideals of feminine beauty prevalent in his time. He also used the art name Shosado. In addition to designing prints and making paintings, he was a poet and a writer and ran a studio that produced surimono. It was probably in this capacity that he introduced some of the innovations of the mid-Bunka period (1809-13), exploring the concept of large series of shikishiban surimono.


Entry

A set of smoking utensils comprising a pipe wrapped in a piece of cloth and a tobacco pouch made of gold leather with a pattern of various fruits, the silver clasp shaped as two rats. The ojime holding the cords together appears to be a decorative glass bead; the netsuke is a simple wooden manju.

The ensemble undoubtedly represents a luxurious smoking set, gold-leather usually being a European import, although there were many local attempts at imitation.

Three poems by Nagai Akimasu, Oya Atotsugi [later Koshurin Atotsugi, the son of Oya Urasumi],2Kano, Kaian (ed.), Kyoka jinmei jisho (Dictionary of Names of Kyoka Poets). Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1977 (1928), p. 7. and Gofukube Itondo (or Itohito).

Though probably trying to please Gofukube Itondo who, judging from his name, which translates as 'Clan of Honorary Material', seems to have been in the drapery business, the second and third poems are rather conventional, and although the first is hardly evocative, it reads:

Pushing aside the silken flossy snow on the fields, I am going to pick young herbs on the still-damp Mount Nurioke,
-nurioke puns on 'supports for drying cotton', norioke.

Issued by the poets
Unsigned


Literature

M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 85


Citation

M. Forrer, 2013, 'attributed to Kubota Shunman, Set of Smoking Utensils, Japan, 1804', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200415956

(accessed 10 December 2025 05:01:06).

Footnotes

  • 1Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 53-54, cat. no. 118
  • 2Kano, Kaian (ed.), Kyoka jinmei jisho (Dictionary of Names of Kyoka Poets). Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1977 (1928), p. 7.