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Suzuki Harunobu 鈴木春信

Cat, Butterfly and Begonias

Maker

Attributed to Suzuki Harunobu 鈴木春信 (1724-1770, worked in Kyoto and Edo, Japan)
Possibly Isoda Koryūsai 礒田湖龍斎 (ca. 1764 - 1788, Edo, Japan)

Title

Cat, Butterfly and Begonias

Period

Edo Period

Year

ca. 1767

Medium

Materials/Techniques

Techniques

Materials

ink and color

Supports

Geography

Place Made: Japan

Dimensions

Chūban: 28.7 x 21.4 cm (11 5/16 x 8 7/16 inches)

Signature / Inscription / Marks

Label: White rectangular label affixed verso, bottom right with inscription in pencil:YB142/[Japanese Characters]

Credit / Object Number

Credit

Gift of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Object Number

34.421

Type

Publications

Exhibition History

Feathers, Flowers, Talons and Fangs
Power and Serenity in Japanese Nature Prints
Feb 02, 2007 – Jun 10, 2007
Nature Studies
Early Bird-and-Flower Prints from the Rockefeller Collection
Jun 07, 2002 – Sep 01, 2002

Label copy

The word for cat in Chinese (mao) is a homophone for the word for octogenarian, and the word for butterfly (die) sounds the same as that for a septuagenarian. Thus the combination of the cat and butterflies here conveys the wish that the recipient might live a long life of seventy or eighty years. It is common for the Japanese to borrow such symbolism from the Chinese visual vocabulary.

Image use

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Public Domain This object is in the Public Domain and available under a CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication

Tombstone

Attributed to Suzuki Harunobu 鈴木春信 (1724-1770, worked in Kyoto and Edo, Japan)
Possibly Isoda Koryūsai 礒田湖龍斎 (ca. 1764 - 1788, Edo, Japan)
Cat, Butterfly and Begonias, ca. 1767
Polychrome woodblock print with embossing (nishiki-e)
Chūban: 28.7 x 21.4 cm (11 5/16 x 8 7/16 inches)
Gift of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. 34.421

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