Books and a Bookcase

Art Historical Context

Keisai Eisen’s “Books and a Bookcase” is a refined example of a surimono, a commissioned woodblock print produced 19th-century Japan. Created with ink and color on paper, the compact print (roughly the size of a postcard) depicts a modest bookcase filled with volumes and accented by delicate flowers. Surimono were typically made for poetry circles or special occasions, allowing artists to employ luxurious techniques such as embossing, metallic pigments, and precise registration that went beyond standard commercial prints. Eisen, best known for his portraits of beautiful women, here turns to still-life subject matter that celebrates the quiet pleasures of learning and aesthetic appreciation. In Edo-period culture, books and flowers together evoked the ideals of the literati—cultivated individuals who valued scholarship, poetry, and seasonal beauty. The work’s inclusion in an album suggests it once formed part of a collaborative series, each sheet pairing an image with verses contributed by the artist’s contemporaries. Now preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s H. O. Havemeyer Collection, this small print offers modern viewers an intimate glimpse into the refined tastes of Japan’s early-19th-century intellectual circles.

About the Artist

Keisai Eisen · 1790–1848

Keisai Eisen (1790–1848), born Ikeda Yoshinobu in Edo (modern Tokyo), emerged as one of the late Edo period's most prolific ukiyo-e masters. The son of the renowned calligrapher and Kanō-school painter Ikeda Shigeharu, Eisen was immersed in the arts from childhood. He apprenticed under Kanō Hakkeisai, adopting the art name "Keisai" in homage to his teacher, and later studied bijin-ga (images of be...