Chinese Beauty Beside a Plum Tree, leaf from the album “A Contest of Beauties from the Near and Distant Past” (Chūko shomeika bijin kurabe)

Chinese Beauty Beside a Plum Tree, leaf from the album “A Contest of Beauties from the Near and Distant Past” (Chūko shomeika bijin kurabe)

Genki (Komai Ki)

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This print is a single sheet from the second edition of A Contest of Beauties from the Near and Distant Past, an album of individual leaves published in 1895 by Aoki Kōsaburo in Osaka. A Chinese beauty is shown leaning against the trunk of a plum tree, contemplating a branch with blossoming flowers. Genki was one of the senior disciples of Maruyama Ōkyo, the founder of the Maruyama-Shijō school. His reputation rests upon one his graceful depictions of beautiful Chinese women. The original printed book contained not only artists from Ōkyo’s school such as Ōkyo himself, Genki or Yamaguchi Soken, but also ukiyo-e artists such as Chōbunsai Eishi (1756–1829) or even painters of the traditional Tosa school.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Chinese Beauty Beside a Plum Tree, leaf from the album “A Contest of Beauties from the Near and Distant Past” (Chūko shomeika bijin kurabe)Chinese Beauty Beside a Plum Tree, leaf from the album “A Contest of Beauties from the Near and Distant Past” (Chūko shomeika bijin kurabe)Chinese Beauty Beside a Plum Tree, leaf from the album “A Contest of Beauties from the Near and Distant Past” (Chūko shomeika bijin kurabe)Chinese Beauty Beside a Plum Tree, leaf from the album “A Contest of Beauties from the Near and Distant Past” (Chūko shomeika bijin kurabe)Chinese Beauty Beside a Plum Tree, leaf from the album “A Contest of Beauties from the Near and Distant Past” (Chūko shomeika bijin kurabe)

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.