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Nagisa Palace from the Tales of Ise
Also known as: Narihira Viewing the Cherry Blossoms
About the Artwork
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.
Inscriptions
signed: Tairyuko Zeshin sei; sealed: Furumitsu.
Provenance
?–1980: Chester Dale Carter December 18, 1980: (Sotheby's New York, NY, December 18, 1980 sale, lot 131, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1980–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
The Year in Review for 1981. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 17-March 21, 1982). Byobu: The Art of the Japanese Screen. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (August 1-October 14, 1984). Unfolding Beauty: Japanese Screens from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 15-September 16, 2001). Rinpa (琳派). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (April 23-October 3, 2021).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Shibata Zeshin (Japanese, 1807–1891)
- Date
- late 1800s
- Medium
- Two-panel folding screen; ink, color, lacquer, and gold on silk
- 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.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Credit line
- Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Accession no.
- 1981.2
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-00009907
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