Skip to Content

Evening Snow on a Floss Shaper (Nurioke no bosetsu), from the series "Eight Views of the Parlor (Zashiki hakkei)"

Color print depicting two women as they dry and bundle fabric.
CC0 Public Domain Designation

Image actions

  • Color print depicting two women as they dry and bundle fabric.

Date:

c. 1766

Artist:

Suzuki Harunobu 鈴木 春信
Japanese, 1725 (?)-1770

About this artwork

The famous series Eight Views of the Parlor was produced in 1766, around the time of the emergence of full-color prints in Japan. The series contains eight prints that were housed together in a fanciful wrapper, all of which are now in the Art Institute’s collection. These scenes present visual puns based on well-known themes of the Xiao and Xiang Rivers in China, each of which has its own poetic title. For Evening Snow, Suzuki Harunobu depicted silk floss as snow and the floss shaper as the mountain rather than showing snow-covered hills.

Such witty visual riddles would have been appreciated by the audience of these prints—wealthy, well-educated townsmen who participated in poetry circles. One such figure was Ōkubo Jinshirō Tadanobu, whose pseudonym was Kyosen. It is thought that he produced this set, engaging Harunobu’s services as well as those of the printer. In fact, this image contains Kyosen’s handwritten signature, leading scholars to believe that the Art Institute’s set is the first edition. Sets with Harunobu’s signature exist in other collections.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Arts of Asia

Artist

Suzuki Harunobu

Title

Evening Snow on a Floss Shaper (Nurioke no bosetsu), from the series "Eight Views of the Parlor (Zashiki hakkei)"

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.

1761–1771

Medium

Color woodblock print; chuban

Dimensions

28.7 × 21.6 cm (11 1/4 × 8 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Clarence Buckingham Collection

Reference Number

1928.903

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/88977/manifest.json

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

Share

Sign up for our enewsletter to receive updates.

Learn more

Image actions

Share