The Chinese Calligrapher Boying (Japanese: Hakuei; also known as the “Sage of Cursive Script”); “Inkstone” (Suzuri), from Four Friends of the Writing Table for the Ichiyō Poetry Circle (Ichiyō-ren Bunbō shiyū) From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1

The Chinese Calligrapher Boying (Japanese: Hakuei; also known as the “Sage of Cursive Script”); “Inkstone” (Suzuri), from Four Friends of the Writing Table for the Ichiyō Poetry Circle (Ichiyō-ren Bunbō shiyū) From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1

Yashima Gakutei

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Surimono are privately published woodblock prints, usually commissioned by individual poets or poetry groups s a form of New Year’s greeting card. The poems, most commonly kyōka (witty thirty-one-syllable verse), inscribed on the prints usually include felicitous imagery connected with spring, which in the lunar calendar begins on the first day of the first month. Themes of surimono are often erudite, frequently alluding to Japanese literary classics in both texts and images.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Chinese Calligrapher Boying (Japanese: Hakuei; also known as the “Sage of Cursive Script”); “Inkstone” (Suzuri), from Four Friends of the Writing Table for the Ichiyō Poetry Circle (Ichiyō-ren Bunbō shiyū) From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1The Chinese Calligrapher Boying (Japanese: Hakuei; also known as the “Sage of Cursive Script”); “Inkstone” (Suzuri), from Four Friends of the Writing Table for the Ichiyō Poetry Circle (Ichiyō-ren Bunbō shiyū) From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1The Chinese Calligrapher Boying (Japanese: Hakuei; also known as the “Sage of Cursive Script”); “Inkstone” (Suzuri), from Four Friends of the Writing Table for the Ichiyō Poetry Circle (Ichiyō-ren Bunbō shiyū) From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1The Chinese Calligrapher Boying (Japanese: Hakuei; also known as the “Sage of Cursive Script”); “Inkstone” (Suzuri), from Four Friends of the Writing Table for the Ichiyō Poetry Circle (Ichiyō-ren Bunbō shiyū) From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1The Chinese Calligrapher Boying (Japanese: Hakuei; also known as the “Sage of Cursive Script”); “Inkstone” (Suzuri), from Four Friends of the Writing Table for the Ichiyō Poetry Circle (Ichiyō-ren Bunbō shiyū) From the Spring Rain Collection (Harusame shū), vol. 1

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.