A Teenage Boy and Girl with a Viewer for an Optique Picture (Nozoki-karakuri); Kōbō Daishi’s Poem on the Jewel River of Kōya (Kōya no Tamagawa: Kōbō Daishi)

Suzuki Harunobu

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

An elegantly dressed teenage boy and girl have been viewing a special type of print designed to create a three-dimensional effect when seen through a viewer with a convex lens known as a nozoki-karakuri (peep box) or Oranda megane (Dutch glasses). The text in the square cartouche is a famous poem by the monk Kōbō Daishi (Kūkai, 774–835) about one of the Six Jewel Rivers, the one in Kii Province (now Wakayama prefecture). The print on the floor visualizes the poem: Wasurete mo kumi ya shitsuran tabibito no Takano no oku no Tamagawa no mizu . [Kii shū meisho] Forgetting the taboo against drinking from it, pilgrims scoop water from the Jewel River in the depths of Mount Kōya. [A famous site in Kii Province] —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