Eshōsai Chōki
Japanese, active c.1780–1810
Catching Fireflies
INV-9019
Eshōsai Chōki
Japanese, active c.1780–1810c.1790s
Catching Fireflies
Eshōsai Chōki Japanese, active c.1780–1810 →Japanese (culture or style)woodblock printprint
Date
c.1790s
Medium
Color woodblock print; ōban
Dimensions
37.2 × 23.2 cm (14 5/8 × 9 1/8 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Kate S. Buckingham Endowment
Ground mica powder, now worn and cracked, originally made the night sky of this print luminous, providing a fitting backdrop to the glow of the fireflies. Artists used mica intermittently from the 1790s into the early 1800s in order to create more luxurious prints. From time to time, the government employed sumptuary laws—laws preventing extravagance—to ban the use of mica because it made prints too expensive.
Even when it was legal to do so, artists likely produced mica backgrounds in limited numbers. Probably fewer than 20 prints with this design have survived, and most of them are now in museum collections.
Also notable
Works in the same vein
Komurasaki of the Miuraya and Shirai Gompachi (Miuraya Komurasaki, Shirai Gompachi)
Kitagawa Utamaro 喜多川 歌麿 Japanese, c.1753-1806
Hamamatsu, from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)
Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川 広重 Japanese, 1797-1858
Mitsuke: Ferries Crossing the Tenryu River (Mitsuke, Tenryugawa funawatashi), from the series "Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido (Tokaido gojusan tsugi)," also known as the Tokaido with Poem (Kyoka iri Tokaido)
Utagawa Hiroshige 歌川 広重 Japanese, 1797-1858
