Courting Komachi (Kayoi Komachi), from the series Famous Scenes from Japanese Puppet Plays (Yamato irotake)

Edo period (1615–1868), 1705/06

Okumura Masanobu
Japanese, 1686-1764

Two actors in an imagined Kabuki drama enact a scene from a puppet play based on a legend about ninth-century poet Ono no Komachi. Komachi instructed a suitor to prove his love by visiting her on 100 successive days. On the final day, he did not appear because he was caught in a storm and died. Here the suitor’s ghost visits Komachi in the middle of the night. The Art Institute and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, are the only two museums with a full set of this series of prints by Okumura Masanobu.

Status: On View, Gallery 107
Department: Arts of Asia

Artist: Okumura Masanobu
Title: Courting Komachi (Kayoi Komachi), from the series Famous Scenes from Japanese Puppet Plays (Yamato irotake)
Place: Japan (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1700–1711
Medium: Woodblock print; oban
Dimensions: 27.3 × 39.1 cm (10 3/4 × 15 7/16 in.)
Credit Line: Clarence Buckingham Collection
Reference Number: 1925.1875
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/19606/manifest.json

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Courting Komachi (Kayoi Komachi), from the series Famous Scenes from Japanese Puppet Plays (Yamato irotake)

On View

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Department

Artist

Title

Place

Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Medium

Dimensions

Credit Line

Reference Number

IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.