Picture Book: Camellia (Ehon Himetsubaki) 絵本女貞木

Nishikawa Sukenobu 西川祐信

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

This book features illustrations of exemplary women. According to the text in the upper section of these pages, a beautiful plum tree owned by a poor woman was to be transferred to the garden of Emperor Goichijō's palace by imperial order, but the emperor, moved by the lady's poem expressing sympathy for the warblers that would lose their nest, decided not to take the tree. The brushwork of the plum tree reveals Sukenobu's training in the Kano idiom.

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