Public data from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Learn more
About the Artwork
This lively scene captures a gathering of stock figures from Otsu-e, or "Otsu paintings." Otsu-e were folk paintings made as souvenirs for travelers passing through the station of Otsu along the Tokaido, the route stretching from Edo (modern-day Tokyo) to Kyoto. Parodies of standard ukiyo-e compositions featuring Otsu-e subjects were popular in woodblock prints of the 19th century. Shibata Zeshin, an artist whose career spanned the transition from the Edo period (1615–1868) to the Meiji period (1868–1912), was fond of depicting urban culture and the pastimes of commoners, aware that they were slipping away in the face of Japan’s modernization. This composition would have appealed to the witty sensibilities of city denizens.
Provenance
?–1982: (Marion Hammer, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1982–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
The Year in Review for 1982. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 5-February 6, 1983). Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 1-October 14, 1984). Highlights of Asian Paintings from The Cleveland Museum of Art. Nara National Museum (organizer) (February 21-March 29, 1998); Suntory Museum of Art (April 28-June 21, 1998). Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 15-September 16, 2001).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Shibata Zeshin (Japanese, 1807–1891)
- Date
- late 1800s
- Medium
- Eight-panel folding screen; ink and color on hemp
- Dimensions
- Image: 101 x 396 cm (39 3/4 x 155 7/8 in.); Overall: 170 x 336 cm (66 15/16 x 132 5/16 in.); Closed: 170 x 11.7 x 61.6 cm (66 15/16 x 4 5/8 x 24 1/4 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Credit line
- John L. Severance Fund
- Accession no.
- 1982.9
More by Shibata Zeshin in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009568
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