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A Large Elephant Recently Imported from Overseas (Shinto hakurai no daizō)

1863 (third month)
Not on view
The inscription reads: "The glory of our holy land has spread even abroad and foreigners at all times offer us rare things and strange birds and beasts, and now a great elephant, a true, live, huge elephant has been imported at the new port of Yokohama. It came from a great plain some thousands of miles in extent at the foot of a big mountain called Hippergen in Baruka (India). Captured alive by a Portuguese who brought it to Japan. The elephant is only 3 years old. It understands what people say and it can guess their feelings and it puts out fires and drives out harmful pestilences. It gets rid of the 7 poisonous things. Anybody who sees one of these elephants will decrease the 7 hardships of man and give rise to the 7 good fortunes."

—Trans. Donald Keene, 1965. Quoted in Julia Meech, The World of the Meiji Print: Impressions of a New Civilization (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art), p. 31.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • 一龍斎芳豊画 「新渡舶来之大象」
  • Title: A Large Elephant Recently Imported from Overseas (Shinto hakurai no daizō)
  • Artist: Ichiryūsai Yoshitoyo (Japanese, 1830–1866)
  • Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
  • Date: 1863 (third month)
  • Culture: Japan
  • Medium: Diptych of woodblock prints (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
  • Dimensions: Vertical ōban; each 14 1/2 × 19 3/8 in. (36.8 × 49.2 cm)
  • Classification: Prints
  • Credit Line: Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1959
  • Object Number: JP3305
  • Curatorial Department: Asian Art

More Artwork

More Artwork
A Dutchman and a Leopard in a Women’s Kimono: “Otora and Ranpei: A Bride on the Wavy Passage to Marriage” (Otora Ranpei michiyuki namiji no anayome), Ichiryūsai Yoshitoyo Japanese, Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper, Japan
A Dutchman and a Leopard in a Women’s Kimono: “Otora and Ranpei: A Bride on the Wavy Passage to Marriage” (Otora Ranpei michiyuki namiji no anayome)
Ichiryūsai Yoshitoyo
1860 (Man’en 1), seventh month
Armor (<i>Gusoku</i>), Saotome Ietada Japanese, Iron, lacquer, silk, gilt copper, Japanese
Armor (Gusoku)
Armorer Helmet bowl signed Saotome Ietada
Armorer Breastplate inscribed inside, Myōchin Munesuke
16th and 18th centuries
Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), or The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei) , Katsushika Hokusai Japanese, Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, Japan

Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa oki nami ura), or The Great Wave, from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku sanjūrokkei)

Katsushika Hokusai
ca. 1830–32
Englishman Walking for Pleasure (Igirisujin yūkō no zu), Ichiryūsai Yoshitoyo Japanese, Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper, Japan
Englishman Walking for Pleasure (Igirisujin yūkō no zu)
Ichiryūsai Yoshitoyo
1860, twelfth month
Shō, Bamboo wood, metal, Japanese
Shō
Japanese
19th century

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