Operating on Guan Yu's Arm

About the Artwork

Ukiyo-e artists’ subject matter extended to popular literature. Katsushika Ōi used color to great effect in her gruesome version of an episode from a 14th-century Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Ōi portrayed the passage in which legendary 3rd-century military leader Guan Yu undergoes a bone scraping to remove poisons received from an arrow wound. In this sensationalist portrayal, Guan Yu’s attendants cower at the sight of his bloody arm while he remains unflinchingly focused on his game. As a woman, Ōi was an outlier in her era, but her talent was allowed to shine due to collaboration with her father, Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), the famed designer of the print known as The Great Wave.

Inscriptions

款記「應為栄女筆」; 「葛しか」白文方印

Provenance

before 1998: Yamagata Hatsutaro October 27, 1998: (Christie's New York, "An Important Collection of Japanese Ukiyo-e Paintings," 27 October 1998, lot 84, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1998–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Exhibition history

Asian Games: The Art of Contest. The Asia Society Museum, New York, NY (organizer) (October 14, 2004-February 5, 2005); National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, DC (February 26-May 15, 2005). Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave. The British Museum, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (organizer) (May 25-August 13, 2017); Abeno Harukas Art Museum, Osaka, Japan (October 6-November 19, 2017). Japan’s Floating World 日本の浮世. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (April 8-October 9, 2022).

Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.

Quick Overview

Artist: Katsushika Ōi (Japanese, c. 1800-after 1857)
Date: 1840s
Medium: hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk
Dimensions: Mounted: 206.7 x 73.1 cm (81 3/8 x 28 3/4 in.); Painting: 140.2 x 68.3 cm (55 3/16 x 26 7/8 in.)
Type: Painting
Classification: Painting
Department: Japanese Art
Credit line: Kelvin Smith Fund
Accession no.: 1998.178

Open-access museum record · AT-00009358