…; purchased from the dealer C.P.J. van der Peet Japanese Prints, Amsterdam, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1984;¹¹Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 68, cat. no. 154 by whom donated to the museum, 1991

Object number: RP-P-1991-558

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

Two itinerant female street musicians, torioi, with simple straw hats, one playing the shamisen, the other, seen from the back, playing the kokyu. To the left a shop employee carrying a lacquered tray with sweets.

Torioi usually travelled in pairs and performed on the kokyu, a three-stringed instrument played with a horsehair bow, the instrument resting on the hip. The combination of a shamisen- and a kokyu-player is less common, although Ishikawa Toyonobu depicted a male and a female musician with these instruments on a two-colour print, benizurie, dating to the 1750s.

The drawing style is reminiscent of the 'abbreviated', ryakuga, style introduced in the 1790s by Kuwagata Keisai Masayoshi (1764-1824).

Three poems by Kanshi Narikata; Shibaan [also Kasuga or Kasugaan Asahaya, a judge of the Yomogawa from the village of Kasuga in the Saku Department of Shinano Province],²²Kano, Kaian (ed.), Kyoka jinmei jisho (Dictionary of Names of Kyoka Poets). Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1977 (1928), p. 7. and Yomo no Utagaki [Magao, 1753-1829, Shikatsube Magao, pupil of Yomo Akara. Used the name 'Yomo' from 1796, when he became a judge of the Yomogawa. Alternative name Kyokado].³³Ibid. p. 214.

Narikata's poem alludes to a heavy drinker piling up sake cups while tuning the shamisen. The two other poems refer to pines and bamboo, kadomatsu, traditional New Year's decorations.

Issued by followers of the poet Yomo Magao
Signature reading: Noritei Koshi ga, followed by seal shaped as an elephant reading: Zo(?)
Produced by the Shuchodo Studio, seal: Shuchodo

M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 25

M. Forrer, 2013, 'Noritei Kôshi, Street Musicians, Japan, c. 1790 - c. 1800', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200467451