Surimono are privately published woodblock prints, usually commissioned by individual poets or poetry groups as a form of New Year’s greeting card. The poems, most commonly kyōka (witty thirty-one syllable verse), inscribed on the prints usually include felicitous imagery connected with spring, which in the lunar calendar begins on the first day of the first month. Themes of surimono are often erudite, frequently alluding to Japanese literary classics in both texts and images.
Credit: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
19th century
Privately published woodblock prints (surimono) mounted in an album; ink and color on paper
13.8 x 18.7cm
JP2154
Image and text © Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019
Where you'll find this
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Permanent collection