Nagisa Palace from the Tales of Ise
Shibata Zeshin (Japanese, 1807–1891)
late 1800s
- Medium
- Two-panel folding screen; ink, color, lacquer, and gold on silk
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Image: 175.3 x 190.5 cm (69 x 75 in.); Each side: 162.8 x 88.6 cm (64 1/8 x 34 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- 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 Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
This screen depicts an episode from the Tales of Ise, a 10th-century collection of poems and associated narratives in which the main character composes the following poem while drinking sake and viewing cherry blossoms: If, in this world of ours / All the cherry blossoms / Disappeared / The heart of spring / Might find peace.
Our hero relaxes on a shoulder rest, gazing at the flowers, his sake dish before him on a lacquered stand. A plump boy attendant monitors the sake dishes, a ewer at the ready. An associate sits with paper, ink, and brush, poised to record poems.
