legends (folk tales); women; kimonos; lanterns; children (people by age group); fusuma; interior spaces; foxes (animals)
An image of a woman, with a fox's head (seen through a screen) walking through a door, leaving her child behind in the house. Foxes, or kitsune, are mysterious, magical creatures with powers many times greater than those of badgers. Sometimes...
Beneath drying autumn grasses, the aged Komachi sits gazing at the moon. Ono no Komachi was a beautiful, intelligent woman and one of the most accomplished early court poets. As a young woman she was pursued by many suitors, most of whom she...
snow (precipitation); men (male humans); women; kimonos; children (people by age group)
Kiuchi Sogoro, as mayor of Kozu-mura (present day Narita City), presented a petition in 1652 directly to the shogun Tokugawa Ietsuna asking tax relief for his farming village because of a bad harvest and harsh treatment by the local governor Hotta...
women; children (people by age group); bats (animals); trees; built works; bridges (built works)
As three bats / komori circle in the evening sky, two boys try to touch them with bamboo sticks while their mother and baby brother look on. Bats have long been a symbol of good luck in Northeast Asia because the words in Chinese for "bat" and for...
women; children (people by age group); kimonos; fans (costume accessories); oil lamps; fruit; stoves (heating equipment); Single Built Works; tables (support furniture); men (male humans)
Meiji period color woodblock print from the "Parody of 24 Paragons of Filial Piety" series, depicting the dutiful son Gomo eating a pomegranate. Above them Wu Meng has lit a smoking fire to protect his father from mosquitoes.
women; hats; veils (headcloths); kimonos; children (people by age group)
Dressed in a black lacquered hat with a broad brim and a delicate silk gauze veil, this woman appears to be in a traveling outfit. Perhaps she is supposed to be a court lady traveling between the Southern Court of emperor GoDaigo (1288-1339) in...
porches; dwellings; Single Built Works; women; kimonos; children (people by age group); men (male humans); infants; fans (costume accessories); toys (recreational artifacts); stoves (heating equipment); lanterns (lighting devices); Japanese maple
Print. no. 6 from the series of parodies of the Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety. The top panel illustrated the story of Lady Tang who breast fed her elderly, toothless mother-in-law. In the lower panel a baby is crawling toward its mother, who...
women; men (male humans); children (people by age group); girls; boys; hats; hairstyles; Built complexes and districts; zoos
Two women accompany a young girl in the foreground, while at rear a man in kimono and Western style hat supervises his son and daughter petting a ram at the Tokyo Zoo, founded in 1882 at Ueno Park.
armor (protective wear); warriors; men (male humans); women; swords; children (people by age group); hairstyles; hair ornaments; kimonos; trees; flowers (plants); lanterns (lighting devices); built works
Taira no Kagekiyo (died 1196) fought against the Genji troops in 1185 at Dan-no-ura. Here his beloved Akoya, a courtesan of the Kyoto licensed quarters in the foothills at Fifth Avenue / Gojozaka, sees him off. (See plate 228 for the interrogation...
women; children (people by age group); Single Built Works; trees; banners; kimonos; sandals
A mother carries her son on her back "horse riding" / uma nori - piggy back- style while her daughter entertains him with some hand puppets of a fox woman and samurai. The inset shows the Inari Shrine at Oji, one of the oldest Shinto sites in the...
women; men (male humans); kimonos; folding screens; flowers (plants); swords
Princess Sen (1597-1666) was the oldest daughter of Tokugawa Hidetada and married at age 7 to Toyotomi Hideyori who died in 1615 at the Battle of Osaka Castle. She was then married to Honda Tadatoki, a Tokugawa ally, but when Tadatoki died in 1626,...
legends (folk tales); men (male humans); women; children (people by age group); swords; kimonos; waterfalls (natural bodies of water); baskets
The 24 Paragons of Filial Piety are based on a compilation of Confucian tales of exemplary behavior by children to their elders. In this tale, Chi Shun went into the forest to gather mulberries for his widowed mother, throwing the ripe, black...
courtesans; trees; flowers (plants); women; children (people by age group); men (male humans); kimonos; Single Built Works; hairstyles; hair ornaments
An elegantly dressed Yoshiwara courtesan looks on while a little boy, held by his mother, ties a poem sheet to a blossoming branch. A servant peeks from behind a broken umbrella, and two men dance in the background.
men (male humans); women; children (people by age group); kimonos
In this comparison, humor dominates lessons in filial piety. While the Chinese lad Yang Xiang was noted for having saved his father from a tiger, the little boy in the lower scene hardly needs to protect his mother from the family cat. In fact,...
women; children (people by age group); infants; kimonos; books; fans (costume accessories); toys (recreational artifacts)
Seven children are shown amidst toys, games and books. Two girls play ayatori / "string pulling" or cat's cradle, while a young lad looks at pictures of samurai / "warriors." An inu haiku / papier mache dog is at right, next to a fan, drum and...
women; men (male humans); children (people by age group); kimonos; trees; built complexes and districts; hairstyles; hair ornaments
A family returns from the Shinto shrine of Kanda Myojin where they have received blessings for their children, including the baby wrapped in a purple cloak decorated with auspicious symbols. The young boy carries a packet of "1000 year candy" /...
women; men (male humans); kimonos; folding screens; children (people by age group); flowers (plants); interior spaces; built works
A baby receives his first bath, with his fisherman father Myomeijiro holding a towel, his grandmother at the wooden tub and his mother Umechiyo recovering with a cup of tea. The child would become the Buddhist prelate Nichiren (1222-1282), whose...
men (male humans); women; kimonos; snow (precipitation); skull (skeleton component)
Taira no Kiyomori (1118-1181), leader of the Heike, was ruthless in his pursuit of political power, crushing the Genji clan in 1160, taking the position of Chancellor in 1167, marrying his daughter to Emperor Takakura, placing the retired Emperor...
children (people by age group); women; men (male humans); kimonos; trees; flowers; mountains
Several myths surround Kintaro, a boy who grew up in the mountains and could speak animal languages, shown here with monkeys and the woman who helped raise him, Yamauba. Kintaro joined the legendary warrior Minamoto no Yorimitsu (948-1021) when he...
children (people by age group); men (male humans); porches; folding screens; trees; flowers (plants); swords; fusuma
According to the inscription on the left side, this composition was originally a painting by Chikanobu that he entered in the Second Painting Competitive Exhibition / Dai ni Kaiga Kyoshinkai held in 1884. The work received the bronze prize and was...
