A Teenage Boy and Girl with a Viewer for an Optique Picture (Nozoki-karakuri); Kōbō Daishi’s Poem on the Jewel River of Kōya (Kōya no Tamagawa: Kōbō Daishi)
An elegantly dressed teenage boy and girl have been viewing a special type of print designed to create a three-dimensional effect when seen through a viewer with a convex lens known as a nozoki-karakuri (peep box) or Oranda megane (Dutch glasses). The text in the square cartouche is a famous poem by the monk Kōbō Daishi (Kūkai, 774–835) about one of the Six Jewel Rivers, the one in Kii Province (now Wakayama prefecture). The print on the floor visualizes the poem:
Wasurete mo
kumi ya shitsuran
tabibito no
Takano no oku no
Tamagawa no mizu .
[Kii shū meisho]
Forgetting the taboo
against drinking from it,
pilgrims scoop water
from the Jewel River
in the depths of Mount Kōya.
[A famous site in Kii Province]
—Trans. John T. Carpenter
Wasurete mo
kumi ya shitsuran
tabibito no
Takano no oku no
Tamagawa no mizu .
[Kii shū meisho]
Forgetting the taboo
against drinking from it,
pilgrims scoop water
from the Jewel River
in the depths of Mount Kōya.
[A famous site in Kii Province]
—Trans. John T. Carpenter
Artwork Details
- 鈴木春信画 覗き絡繰り・「高野の玉川 弘法大師」
- Title: A Teenage Boy and Girl with a Viewer for an Optique Picture (Nozoki-karakuri); Kōbō Daishi’s Poem on the Jewel River of Kōya (Kōya no Tamagawa: Kōbō Daishi)
- Artist: Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770)
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: ca. 1788
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
- Dimensions: 10 3/4 x 7 3/4 in. (27.3 x 19.7 cm)
- Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1946
- Object Number: JP3024
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art
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