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Ashcombe Museum of Art & History
Asian Art

Reverberations of Taiga, Volume 2 (leaf 25)

Details

Author / creator
Aoki Shukuya (Japanese, d. 1802)
Object type
Decorative arts
Date or period
mid-1700s–1802
Dimensions summary
Album, closed: 28.3 × 33 cm
Maker or workshop
Aoki Shukuya
Period / style
Edo period
Place of origin
Japan
Acquisition method
Purchase
Credit line
Purchased with the National Heritage Memorial Fund, 1979
Image rights
Public domain (CC0)

About this object

Aoki Shukuya was a top student of painter Ike Taiga and took responsibility for Taiga’s stylistic legacy. A painting album by Taiga, part of which survives today in Kyoto in hanging scroll format, served as the source for this painting by Shukuya and the matching designs from a set of wood-block–printed volumes published in 1804. The postscript to the books, written and carved by the scholar Minagawa Kien (皆川淇園) (1735–1807), explains that Taiga produced the original album for his wife and fellow painter Tokuyama Gyokuran (徳山玉瀾) (1727/28–1784).

The final design in the first volume of the books and Shukuya’s corresponding painting include the text “viewing the moon from a river pavilion” (江楼賞月). The scene alludes to a poem by Tang dynasty (618–907) poet Zhao Gu (趙嘏) (Chinese, active mid-800s). In the poem, a person gazes at the moon from a riverside pavilion and reflects on the absence of a companion who had admired it with him at the same place the year before.

Materials and technique

Double-leaf from a pair of albums; ink and light color on paper

Signature and marks

The scene alludes to a poem by Tang-dynasty (618–907) poet Zhao Gu (趙嘏) (Chinese, active mid-800s). In the poem, a person gazes at the moon from a riverside pavilion and reflects on the absence of a companion who had admired it with him at the same place the year before.: 江楼賞月 (“viewing the moon from a river pavilion”)

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