Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Women Planting Rice
Teisai Hokuba Japanese
Not on view
This painting juxtaposes women depicted in colorful garments in the foreground planting rice with a landscape rendered primarily in sumi ink and light colors, with a small village nestled under pine trees, waiting for the dense rain clouds massing at the foot of Mt. Fuji to roll over it. Hokuba, an early pupil of Katsushika Hokusai, was well known for similar compositions. Such juxtapositions are typical of mitate-e, or parody paintings, in which historical and religious figures, peasants, or urban commoners of various vocations are replaced by women dressed in beautiful kimonos and long obi. The “farm wife” on the embankment is particularly opulently dressed in a patterned blue kimono with long dangling sleeves, her hair held in place with combs and a decorative hairpin.
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