Xu You and Chao Fu18th century
Okumura Masanobu designed this in 18th century, aged about 14. It is now at The Met in New York. More about this work
About this work
Okumura Masanobu designed this in 18th century, aged about 14. It is now at The Met in New York.
How it was made
- Colour woodblock print
- In Japan these were a team effort. The artist drew the design, a carver cut it into cherry-wood blocks, one block for each colour, and a printer brushed on the pigment and rubbed each sheet by hand. Full-colour prints of this kind were called nishiki-e, “brocade pictures”, from the 1760s on.
Okumura Masanobu
Japanese, 1686–1764
Masanobu was a largely self-taught artist of early ukiyo-e who also ran his own publishing house in Edo. Over a long career he worked through the major developments of the period, from black-ink sheets to hand-coloured designs and early two-colour pictures. He was among the first to adapt Western linear perspective in uki-e, deep views of theatre interiors and streets, and he popularised the tall, narrow pillar picture.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Ukiyo-e
Japanese woodblock prints of the floating world: actors, courtesans, landscapes and the sea.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- JP1589
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Prints
- Department
- Asian Art
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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More by Okumura Masanobu
All their works
Close in colour
