…; the dealer or collection Hayashi Tadamasa (1853-1906) (L. 2971);…; purchased from the dealer Hotei Japanese Prints, Leiden, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1988;¹¹Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 99, cat. no. 168 by whom donated to the museum, 1991

Object number: RP-P-1991-633

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

For another print featuring the Spring Pony Dance, by Maki Bokusen, dated 1810, see RP-P-1991-454; for calendar prints for the New Horse Year 1786 on the same theme featuring women performing the Spring Pony Dance, cf.²²Keyes, 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. 262. (by Kitao Shigemasa), and³³Ibid., p. 355..

A woman holding a hobby-horse performs the Spring Pony Dance, harugoma, to the accompaniment of a shamisen and a hand-drum played by two women seated to the right.

This print is a picture calendar, egoyomi, for the New Year of the Horse 1810, the numerals for the short months, 1, 3, 6, 9 and 11, visible on the drum, kotsuzumi, held by the woman in the right foreground.

Although the design is unsigned, it is plausible in view of the obvious amateurism that it was designed by the poet Korifu, or Koryu. This is supported by the opening words of his poem, speaking of the design 'being cut out in cherry wood'.

One poem by Benbenkan Korifu, or Koryu [I, 1749-1818, earlier Fukurindo Kyoritsu, a leader of the Biwaren].⁴⁴Kano, Kaian (ed.), Kyoka jinmei jisho (Dictionary of Names of Kyoka Poets). Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1977 (1928), p. 79.

Issued by the poet
Unsigned

M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 199

M. Forrer, 2013, 'anonymous, Woman Performing the Spring Pony Dance, Japan, 1810', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200467503