Image is an example from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (B. 1760, d. 1849)
The poet in China being starved by Imperial command wrote the poem in blood on his sleeve.
I search high heaven / And now above Mikasa / In the land of Kasuga / I know the moon is shining, / Yon moon I see HYAKUNIN ISSHU URAGAWA ETORI The Hundred Poems Explained by the Nurse. [From a] complete set of the twenty-seven prints of this series, being all that were published, though Hokusai drew designs for the others. The meaning of many of these ancient poems, which are written in the old Yamato language and contain allusions to things not now recognizable, is obscure, and numerous commentaries upon them have been written. For two of the metrical versions here given the compiler of this catalogue is indebted to Mr. Will H. Edmunds; the others are by Mr. F. V. Dickens.Yoko-e. Signed: Zen Hokusai Manji.
Purchaser: Mr. Richmond
Price: $12.50
Literature
Morse, Peter, Hokusai Katsushika, and 北斎(1760-1849) 葛飾. 1989. Hokusai, One Hundred Poets. . Translated by Clay MacCauley. New York: G. Braziller.
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