Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.

A Family Visiting a Shrine in the “Eleventh Month” (Kagura-zuki), from the series Fashionable Poetic Immortals in the Four Seasons (Fūzoku shiki kasen)

Suzuki Harunobu Japanese

Not on view

Each print in this series of sixteen includes a seasonal pastime. Here, a festively dressed family passes the red lacquered torii gate of a Shinto shrine on their way to a Kagura, or sacred dance performance, associated with the eleventh month of the lunar calendar. The artist borrowed an ancient waka (thirty-one-syllable court poem) to accompany the contemporary scene:

Sugi tateru / mon wa nakeredo /
sato-kagura / kore ya miyai no /
hajime naruran

Though the gateway
has no cypress garlands,
the sacred dances
in the shrine precincts
are about to begin.

—Trans. John T. Carpenter

A Family Visiting a Shrine in the “Eleventh Month” (Kagura-zuki), from the series Fashionable Poetic Immortals in the Four Seasons (Fūzoku shiki kasen), Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725–1770), Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper; vertical chūban, Japan

This image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Open Access

As part of the Met's Open Access policy, you can freely copy, modify and distribute this image, even for commercial purposes.

API

Public domain data for this object can also be accessed using the Met's Open Access API.