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Boy performing a Narihira Dance
Style of Iwasa Matabei (1578-1650)
late 17th century
- Medium
- Ink, color and gold on paper
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (image): 28.5 × 33.8 cm (11 1/4 × 13 5/16 in)
- Culture
- Japanese
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
These two paintings (see also F1903.61) are sections from a late-seventeenth-century handscroll by an unidentified painter. In one, a boy performs a so-called Narihira odori (Narihira dance), in which the dancer enacts the role of the poet, nobleman, and romantic hero Ariwara no Narihira (825-880). Narihira dances, which feature an elegant costume with a courtier's hat, were often performed by boys and young men in early-seventeenth-century kabuki. In the other painting, a monkey performs a dance to entertain a mother and her children.
