A Picture Calendar for 1817, Year of the Ox

Artist Kitao Shigemasa (Japanese, 1739–1820)

MediumColor woodblock print

Dimensions5 5/8 × 7 3/8 inches (14.3 × 18.7 cm)

ClassificationsPrints

Credit LineGift of Joanna Haab Schoff, Class of 1955

Terms

Japanese
Surimono
Color woodblock print
Calendars
Poetry
Seals
Calligraphy

Object number2011.017.007

Label CopySurimono were typically made for the New Year, either as picture calendars or as New Year’s greetings commissioned by poetry groups. Shigemasa’s print shows an ink-paste holder with seals, and a sheet of paper showing the impressions of the seals that contain the numbers for the short months, on the left, and the long months, on the right, for the year 1817. ("American Sojourns and the Collecting of Japanese Art," curated by Ellen Avril and presented at the Johnson Museum June 25–December 18, 2016) • Sumi no iro The color of lampblack Ji no gyogi yoku On the well aligned characters Inochi made mo Sitting properly Shanto suwari As though their lives depended on it Chigo no kakizome The children’s first writing of the year —Asakuraan Sansho The subject of this work is comprised of a decoratively designed inkpad holder with a red karakusa (“Chinese grass”) pattern, and two fancy, well-carved seals, impressions of which, cleverly embodying the calendar numbers for 1817, appear on the paper in the lower left corner. The seal on the right has a carving of a “petting ox,” the smooth forms of which are wonderfully captured by the woodblock embossing process. The petting ox was a small stone sculpture used as a talisman, rubbed lovingly when one had a wish to make, and rewarded with a cushion (here, the inkpad holder) when the wish came true, thus often featured as a reference to years of the ox. The seal on the left, with rings on the top, was used as a counterweight on a string hung over the sash of a kimono, typically with a money bag at the other end. In the impressions of these seals, we find the small months for 1817 on the left (2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12) and the large (1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11) on the right. The poem jokingly refers to the seals as the children’s debut kakizome, or first calligraphic writing of the year, describing how disciplined and well-arranged the characters, of both letters and children, are.

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