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Overview
Surimono (literally meaning "printed thing") are a luxury genre of Japanese woodblock prints, privately commissioned for special occasions such as the New Year. Matthi Forrer describes the simple arrangement of Shōzo Ittei's charming surimono, identifying the bowl's contents as dandelion leaves, and the textured battledore-shaped implement as a grater. The characters on the bowl are those for fuku (luck) and fu (long life), while the flowing silver emblem is that of the poetry club that assembled around Tsurunoya Osamaru (c. 1751-c. 1839). The cloth bag in the form of a monkey attached to the scissors indicates 1824, the year of the monkey. The poems are by Ki no Takane, Numakane Jun and Tsurunoya. The seal at the lower left identifies the publisher Tani Seikōdō Takuboku (active 1822-31). Tani Seikōdō is unique in applying his own seal to almost every print he produced during his prolific decade of work from 1822. He was remarkable for his assumption of the roles of both block-cutter and printer, the refinement he brought to both crafts, and for the close relationships with the literary circles of his time.
Regrettably, next to nothing is known of the talented creator of this surimono, Shōzo Ittei. There is every reason to believe that this impression is a rare original rather than the 'A-grade' second edition of Hokusai's Farewell gift for the horse (Te Papa 2016-0008-26).
Sources:
David Bell and Mark Stocker, 'Rising sun at Te Papa: the Heriot collection of Japanese art', Tuhinga, 29 (2018), https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/document/10608
Matthei Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum (Leyden, 2012)
Dr Mark Stocker Curator, Historical International Art May 2019
/collections.tepapa.govt.nz/document/10608