Posted by Anders R (219.198.195.5) on February 25, 2012 at 16:05:37:
In Reply to: Re: Surimono Naga-ban? posted by Janivar on February 24, 2012 at 03:05:04:
I have seen this design before. I have quite a few of these nagaban by Hokusai in my colection, but I dont have my main library here so can't do further checks.
We don't know the edition or even how they were distributed. Some scholars thinks they were sent to the benefactors of the performance for free as a token of thanks.
My theory is they were given to the clients of the teahouse who arranged the booking of the seats for the commercially sold seats as a sort of entrance ticket and "thank you" to the patron for buying the seat, this also in combination with free distribution to the benefactors.There are some period written circumstantial support for this.
If they just had been distributed to the benefactors there would have been so few printed that hardly any would survive today.
The audience for these events were mainly sophisticated people of the merchant class, but also some aristocrats.
PS
I was going to bid on the surimono, but overslept, alarm clock didn't work, the end time was 5am JST (Tokyo time)(normally I usually get up 5.30-6am, without alarm help), so you got a real bargain. If you are interested in selling or exchanging you can always contact me!
Japaneseart ( AT ) yahoo.com