The Lovers Miura-ya Komurasaki and Shirai Gonpachi.

The Lovers Miura-ya Komurasaki and Shirai Gonpachi.

Kitagawa Utamaro

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Tragic love stories taken from real life and dramatized were a staple of stage and print; the darkly romantic combination of desire and death was hugely popular in the eighteenth century. Hirai Gompachi was a warrior of the Tottori fief in western Japan who fled to Edo after committing a murder. He was apprehended and sentenced to death in 1679. His distraught lover, the courtesan Komurasaki, committed suicide at his grave.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Lovers Miura-ya Komurasaki and Shirai Gonpachi.The Lovers Miura-ya Komurasaki and Shirai Gonpachi.The Lovers Miura-ya Komurasaki and Shirai Gonpachi.The Lovers Miura-ya Komurasaki and Shirai Gonpachi.The Lovers Miura-ya Komurasaki and Shirai Gonpachi.

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world. Each of the many civilizations of Asia is represented by outstanding works, providing an unrivaled experience of the artistic traditions of nearly half the world.