A Large Elephant Recently Imported from Overseas (Shinto hakurai no daizō)
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.
—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
- 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
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Ichiryūsai Yoshitoyo
2nd month, 1863
Armorer Helmet bowl signed Saotome Ietada
Armorer Breastplate inscribed inside, Myōchin Munesuke
16th and 18th centuries
Katsushika Hokusai
ca. 1830–32
Ichiryūsai Yoshitoyo
1860, seventh month
Japanese
20th century
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