Ono no Komachi Praying for Rain
Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1725 (?)-1770)
Edo period (1615–1868), 1766
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; chuban
- Classification
- Dimensions
- 28.9 × 20.7 cm (11 1/4 × 8 1/8 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
As in the print nearby, Suzuki Harunobu also adapted this design from the earlier series The Seven Fashionable Aspects of Komachi. This version, a pictorial calendar for the year 1766, depicts two girls at a riverbank. In the banner at the upper right is an umbrella and two slips of paper used to write poems. These objects refer to the story of Ono no Komachi praying for rain. Ordered by an emperor to recite a poem about rain to end a drought, Komachi did so, and legend has it that the heavens opened up and it began to pour.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
