Parody of Palace Servants Heating Sake over a Fire of Maple Leaves

Okumura Masanobu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In one scene of The Tale of the Heike, Emperor Takakura happens upon servants who have swept up maple leaves to make a fire to heat sake. The emperor remarks that they seem to be aware of a poem by the Tang poet Bo Juyi alluding to just such a scene. In this parody of the episode, one of the servants plays a three-stringed shamisen, which is anachronistic, since the instrument was not used in Japan until the seventeenth century. Beside the scene the artist has added a hokku (seventeen-syllable seasonal poem), perhaps of his own composition Irozuku ya momiji o takite sake no kan How colorful! Burning crimson leaves to heat rice wine —Trans. John T. Carpenter

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

Metropolitan Museum of Art