Haiga
Mother dressing up her son for hakamagiSigned: Nichôsai no hitsu
Seals: Nichô
Technique: sumi and light colours on paper 106,2 x 30,9
Mounting: brown decorated silk and brown silk 196 x 33,3
Box: inscribed
Condition: a few light creases, otherwise very good
The poem, a haiku, reads: 歴然と 位ある子供の まんざ中 耳鳥斎の筆
Rekizen to / i aru kodomo no / manzanaka.
It is indisputable / that the boy has status now / among all who are present.
Hakamagi (袴着) The occasion is that a little boy wears a hakama, a kind of formal trouser-skirt for the first time.
Although roughly painted, the picture is striking: the caring tenderness of the mother and the son so proud of being a big boy now.
Nichôsai was the art-name of Matsuya Heizaburô, a sake brewer and curio dealer of Osaka who was also a comic writer, writer of plays for bunraku, the puppet theatre, and producer of kyôga - light-hearted, comic pictures.
Reference:
Itami 2005
Roberts p. 60
Araki p. 811
Price: SOLD
