Katsukawa Shunsen (勝川春好) (artist 1762 – ca 1830)
The Clam's Mirage of the Dragon Palace (Ryūgūjō 龍宮城)
ca 1804
15.15in x 10.1in Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Shunsen ga 春扇画
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Mirage of Ryūgūjō ( 龍宮城 Palace of Dragon God ) emerges from a clam to the surprise and delight of a mother carrying a baby and her two sons who laugh and point excitedly. A couple of fishermen, their catch in two large baskets, also enjoy the spectacle.
Delicately printed with blind embossing of the waves sharply visible in oblique lighting.
There is no publisher seal, but possibly it was Kawaguchiya Uhei (Marks 232) who published Shunko II (Shunsen) untitled landscape series with a red cloud band - Marks estimates production ca 1810-20s.
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Lafcadio Hearn in his Romance of the Milky Way and other studies and stories wrote in his 1910 edition on pages 93-95: "The term Shinkirō is used in the meaning of "mirage," and also another name for Hōrai, the Elf-land of Far Eastern fable. Various beings in Japanese myth are credited with power to delude mortals by creating a mirage of Hōrai. In old pictures one may see a toad represented in the act of exhaling from its mouth a vapour that shapes the apparition of Hōrai."
"But the creature especially wont to produce this illusion is the Hamaguri [蛤], -a Japanese mollusk much resembling a clam. Opening its shell, it sends into the air a purplish misty breath; and that mist takes the form and defines, in tints of mother-of-pearl, the luminous vision of Hōrai and the palace of the Dragon-King."
Kuchi aku toki ya
Shinkirō!
Yo ni shiraré ken
Tatsu-no-miya-himé!
Shinkirō appears!... Then all clearly see the
Maiden-Princess of the Dragon-Palace.)
Tatsu no miyako no
Hinagata wo
Shio-hi no oki ni
Misuru hamaguri!
Lo! in the offing at ebb-tide, the hamaguri
makes visible the miniature image of Shinkirō -
the Dragon-Capital!
Yūrei-zu (幽霊図 - ghosts demons monsters and spirits) (genre)