Mitsuuji with Mountain Roses (Yamabuki), from the series “Six Jewel Faces” (Mu tama-gao)

Mitsuuji with Mountain Roses (Yamabuki), from the series “Six Jewel Faces” (Mu tama-gao)

Utagawa Kunisada

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mitsuuji, the samurai protagonist of A Fraudulent Murasaki’s Rustic Genji, is shown in this half-bust portrait on a fan print. His “lobster-tail” topknot, flipped forward and split in front (not how elite samurai actually wore their hair), became a trademark feature of depictions by Utagawa Kunisada and his disciples. The colorful background, with explosions of tie-dyed floral motifs, is a reminder of how Kunisada made all his thousands of Genji-print designs a visual record of different textile patterns of the day. The title Six Jewel Faces (Mu tama-gao), along with its allusion to the literary theme of Six Jewel Rivers, suggests that this set of fan prints captures the appearance of a half-dozen attractive individuals, and, indeed, the other five works in the set show images of beautiful women, mostly courtesans of the pleasure quarters.

Asian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mitsuuji with Mountain Roses (Yamabuki), from the series “Six Jewel Faces” (Mu tama-gao)Mitsuuji with Mountain Roses (Yamabuki), from the series “Six Jewel Faces” (Mu tama-gao)Mitsuuji with Mountain Roses (Yamabuki), from the series “Six Jewel Faces” (Mu tama-gao)Mitsuuji with Mountain Roses (Yamabuki), from the series “Six Jewel Faces” (Mu tama-gao)Mitsuuji with Mountain Roses (Yamabuki), from the series “Six Jewel Faces” (Mu tama-gao)

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.