Fine Japanese Prints

Fine Japanese Prints

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 38. Totoya Hokkei (1780-1850) | The Deva Benzaiten with a Monkey and a Rat | Edo period, 19th century.

A Collection of Surimono

Totoya Hokkei (1780-1850) | The Deva Benzaiten with a Monkey and a Rat | Edo period, 19th century

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Lot Closed

December 14, 01:38 PM GMT

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

A Collection of Surimono

Totoya Hokkei (1780-1850) 

The Deva Benzaiten with a Monkey and a Rat

Edo period, 19th century 


woodblock print, surimono, embellished with metallic pigments and embossing, signed Hokkei, privately issued in 1828, collector's seal to the reverse WS


Surimono, shikishiban: 21.3 x 18 cm., 8⅜ x 7⅛ in. 

Werner Schindler (1905-1986)

This surimono forms a picture calendar (egoyomi) revealing the short months of the zodiacal year of the rat in 1828, which are depicted in the scroll unfurled by a white rat and a monkey. Benzaiten, the goddess of music, sits between them holding her lute beside an adonis plant (fukujuso).


For a further example of the same print in the collection of the Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, object number 1933.4.1904, go to: 

https://harvardartmuseums.org/art/207665


Also, for another example in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, reference number 1954.564, go to: 

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/81090/benzaiten-with-monkey-and-rat