Evening Snow on Matsuchi Hilll, from the series Eight Fashionable Views of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)

Evening Snow on Matsuchi Hilll, from the series Eight Fashionable Views of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)

Suzuki Harunobu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sugoroku, still current, is played with counters and a single die; the board game involves a race to the finish. The woman at the right is about to throw the die as the other makes her "move" on the board. Whoever reaches the goal first is the winner. Despite the cold weather, the shoji are drawn back to reveal Mount Matsuchi, a site in Edo famous for its snowy vistas. The well-structured landscape seems almost like a painting. In the middle ground snow-covered cottages and moored boats are arranged behind trees that are cut off in the foreground by the window frame. On top of the distant cliff at the left stands the famous temple Shōtengu, dedicated to the popular cult for the Esoteric Buddhist deity Kankiten (in Sanskrit, Nandikeshvara). On the right, a bridge crosses a river, probably the Asakusa River in Edo. The poem written at the top, inside a cloud-shaped cartouche, reads: White snow is piled along the road on Matsuchi Hill. Every tree seems to be blossoming in the twilight.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Evening Snow on Matsuchi Hilll, from the series Eight Fashionable Views of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)Evening Snow on Matsuchi Hilll, from the series Eight Fashionable Views of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)Evening Snow on Matsuchi Hilll, from the series Eight Fashionable Views of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)Evening Snow on Matsuchi Hilll, from the series Eight Fashionable Views of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)Evening Snow on Matsuchi Hilll, from the series Eight Fashionable Views of Edo (Furyu Edo hakkei)

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.