Mother and Child
Kitagawa Fujimaro, Mother and Child, 1818, ink and color on silk, Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Mrs. Maybelle Clark MacDonald, public domain, 69.51
This work is not currently on view.
- Title
Mother and Child
- Related Titles
original language: 母と子図
- Artist
- Date
1818
- Medium
ink and color on silk
- Dimensions (H x W x D)
40 3/4 in x 13 5/8 in
- Inscriptions & Markings
signature/maker's mark: Lower right two red seals, upper left black writing and three red seals
inscription: Dated inscription by the Confucian scholar, author, and calligrapher Nishijima Rankei. The greater part of the inscription consists of a four-line, seven-character poem in classical Chinese. The poem translates as follows: "The shining black of her moth eyebrows hints at the features of a mountain fairy, But her unbounded love for her child is yet more beautiful. The artist conjures forth the Goddess of Mt. Wu; The miracle of his skill leaves me amazed". The second half of the inscription tells when and where the poem was written, "Inscribed one day after the Chrysanthemum Festival in the Year of the Tiger (1818), under the south window of the Seikin Shooku Studio in the house of Miss Tami".
- Collection Area
Asian Art
- Category
Paintings
- Object Type
hanging scroll
- Culture
Japanese
- Credit Line
Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Mrs. Maybelle Clark MacDonald
- Accession Number
69.51
- Copyright
public domain
- Terms
Fujimaro, about whom very little is otherwise known, was a pupil of the famous Japanese painter and print artist Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–1806). One of Utamaro's favorite subjects was young boys playing with their mothers, and Fujimaro shows his indebtedness to his master by taking the figure of the child in this painting almost directly from one of Utamaro's prints of the 1790s.