A Pet Cat with a Block of Dried Fish

Artist Teisai Hokuba (Japanese, 1771–1844)

Datecommissioned for New Year 1806

MediumColor woodblock print

Dimensions5 3/8 × 7 1/4 inches (13.7 × 18.4 cm)

ClassificationsPrints

Credit LineGift of Joanna Haab Schoff, Class of 1955

Terms

Surimono
Color woodblock print
Poetry
Cats
Fish
Japanese

Object number2011.017.009

Label CopyKori toku The hands of warm breezes Kaze no te-gai no Melt the winter’s ice Tora no me no And the shining eyes of our pet “Tiger” Toki mo tagawade Tell us it is just time for the coming Kuru tama no haru Of the jeweled spring of the cat —Hakyutei Sakai The warm breezes of spring are a frequent theme for New Year verse. Here, there is a pivot on te (hand), which goes metaphorically with the warm, extending winds and lexically with “hand-kept” or “tame,” as for a pet. Tama (jewel), a common reference to the New Year, is traditionally the most popular name for pet cats in Japan, implying that tama no harucan can mean both “jeweled spring” and “spring of our pet cat.” The eyes of this “tiger”—the zodiac animal for 1806, as well a popular reference for cats (“tora-neko”)— are prominent in both verse and image, and also connected with jewels (“medama”), with their roundness and sparkle. An old tradition has it that one can tell the time of day just by looking at the eyes of a cat, and here the cat’s excited eyes reveal that the New Year has come. The foreshortening of the cat’s body emphasizes its plumpness, filling over a third of the print with its patterned fur and soft, embossed contours, which also contrast with the hardness of the starkly outlined block of dried katsuo fish.

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