id: 160300 accession number: 1998.178 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1998.178 updated: 2023-03-15 15:46:31.500000 Operating on Guan Yu's Arm, 1840s. Katsushika Ōi (Japanese, c. 1800-after 1857). Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk; mounted: 206.7 x 73.1 cm (81 3/8 x 28 3/4 in.); painting: 140.2 x 68.3 cm (55 3/16 x 26 7/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Kelvin Smith Fund 1998.178 title: Operating on Guan Yu's Arm title in original language: 関羽割臂図 series: series in original language: creation date: 1840s creation date earliest: 1840 creation date latest: 1849 current location: creditline: Kelvin Smith Fund copyright: --- culture: Japan, Edo period (1615-1868) technique: hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk department: Japanese Art collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Katsushika Ōi (Japanese, c. 1800-after 1857) - artist Artist Ōi was Hokusai's third daughter, and perhaps his most devoted student and a superb talent in her own right. --- measurements: Mounted: 206.7 x 73.1 cm (81 3/8 x 28 3/4 in.); Painting: 140.2 x 68.3 cm (55 3/16 x 26 7/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: 款記「應為栄女筆」 translation: remark: inscription: 「葛しか」白文方印 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Asian Games: The Art of Contest opening date: 2004-10-14T00:00:00 Asian Games: The Art of Contest. The Asia Society Museum, New York, NY (organizer) (October 14, 2004-February 5, 2005); Smithsonian Institution Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Washington, DC (February 26-May 15, 2005). title: Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave opening date: 2017-05-25T04:00:00 Hokusai: Beyond the Great Wave. The British Museum, London, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (organizer) (May 25-August 13, 2017); Abeno Harukas Art Museum, Osaka, Japan (October 6-November 19, 2017). title: Japan's Floating World (Japanese art rotation) 235 opening date: 2022-04-08T04:00:00 Japan's Floating World (Japanese art rotation) 235. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (April 8-October 9, 2022). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meisaku ten. Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, Japan (January 19–26, 1957). * Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meisaku ten: Orinpikku Tokyo taikai kinen [The exhibition of ukiyoe hand-paintings [sic]: In commemoration of the Tokyo Olympics]. Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, Japan (October 8–18, 1964). * Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten: Azabu bijutsukan shozo [Ukiyo-e Painting Masterpieces in the Collection of the Azabu Museum of Art]. Sendai City Museum, Sendai, Japan (June 11–July 17, 1988); Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan (September 6–October 9, 1988); Sogo Museum, Yokohama, Japan (October 20–November 13, 1988). * Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten [肉筆浮世絵名品展 = Exhibition of masterpieces of ukiyo-e painting]. Itabashi Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan (April 8–May 7, 1989). * Japanese Gallery 103 Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (December 20, 1998–March 15, 1999). * Japanese Gallery 121 Rotation. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (May 4–August 11, 2000). --- PROVENANCE Yamagata Hatsutaro date: before 1998 footnotes: citations: (Christie's New York, "An Important Collection of Japanese Ukiyo-e Paintings," 27 October 1998, lot 84, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) date: October 27, 1998 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1998– footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: This is the largest surviving painting by the artist. digital description: Ukiyo-e artists’ subject matter extended to popular literature. Katsushika Ōi used color to great effect in her gruesome version of an episode from a 14th-century Chinese novel, Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Ōi portrayed the passage in which legendary 3rd-century military leader Guan Yu undergoes a bone scraping to remove poisons received from an arrow wound. In this sensationalist portrayal, Guan Yu’s attendants cower at the sight of his bloody arm while he remains unflinchingly focused on his game. As a woman, Ōi was an outlier in her era, but her talent was allowed to shine due to collaboration with her father, Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849), the famed designer of the print known as The Great Wave. wall description: This imposing image bears the signature and seal of Ōi, daughter of Katsushika Hokusai, the best known Japanese artist in the Western world. Ōi served in her father's studio as an assistant and then collaborator during the early 1800s, when Hokusai's popularity in Japan was at its zenith. The dazzling composition, design sense, and palette of colorful mineral pigments in this hanging scroll record her artistic powers at their finest.

The event pictured here comes from a 16th-century Chinese novel, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which enjoyed great popularity during the 18th and 19th centuries among educated Japanese society. Here Ōi portrayed the passage in which the legendary 3rd-century military leader Guanyu undergoes a bloodletting to remove poisons received from an arrow wound. During the operation, with his attendants cowering at the sight of his bloody arm, Guanyu remains focused on a game of go (similar to the Western game of chess) and—judging from the sumptuous food and drink in the background still life—looks forward to a satisfying meal. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Mainichi Shinbunsha 每日新聞社. Nikuhitsu ukiyoe meisakuten mokuroku [Catalogue of an exhibition of masterpieces of ukiyo-e painting]. Tōkyō: Isetan, 1957. page number: no. 94 url: Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meisaku ten: Orinpikku Tokyo taikai kinen [The exhibition of ukiyoe hand-paintings [sic]: In commemoration of the Tokyo Olympics].Tokyo: Mainichi Shimbunsha, 1964. page number: no. 129 url: Shibui, Kiyoshi 渋井清, and Sadao Kikuchi 菊池貞夫. Nikuhitsu ukiyoe bijinga shūsei [肉筆浮世絵, 美人画集成 = Ukiyo-e paintings of beauties in Japanese collections]. Tōkyō: Mainichi Shinbunsha, 1983. page number: Reproduced: vol. 2, pl. 20 url: Azabu Museum of Art, and Osaka Municipal Museum of Art, eds. Azabu Bijutsukan shozō nikuhitsu ukiyoe meihin ten [麻布美術館所蔵肉筆浮世絵名品展 = Ukiyo-e painting masterpieces in the collection of the Azabu Museum of Art]. Tōkyō: Azabu Bijutsukan, 1988. page number: Reproduced: pl. 79 url: Tazawa Hiroyoshi 田沢裕賀. "Azabu bijutsukan shozo nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten: Tenrankai annai" (Exhibition of ukiyo-e masterpieces in the Azabu Museum of Art: Exhibition news). Ukiyo-e geijutsu [浮世絵芸術 = Ukiyo-e Art] 94 (October 1988). page number: Reproduced: title page url: Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e meihin ten [肉筆浮世絵名品展 = Exhibition of masterpieces of ukiyo-e painting]. Tōkyō: Itabashi Kuritsu Bijutsukan, 1989. page number: Reproduced: pl. 51 url: Nakamura, Hideki 中村英樹. Hokusai mangekyō: porifonīteki shutai e [北斎万華鏡 : ポリフォニー的主体へ = Gazing at Hokusai's constellation: toward polyphonic vision]. Tōkyō: Bijutsu Shuppansha, 1990. page number: pp. 100, 101 url: Fister, Patricia. Kinsei no josei gakatachi: bijutsu to jendā [近世の女性画家たち: 美術とジェンダー = Japanese women artists of the kinsei era]. Kyōto-shi: Shibunkaku Shuppan, 1994. page number: Reproduced: color pl. p. 228 url: Kobayashi, Tadashi 小林忠 and Shūgō. Asano 浅野秀剛 . Azabu bijutsu kōgeikan [麻布美術工芸館 = Azabu Museum of Arts and Crafts]. vol. 6 of Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e taikan [Ukiyo-e paintings in Japanese collections]. Tokyo: Kodansha, 1995. page number: Reproduced: pl. 61 url: Kubota Kazuhiro 久保田一洋. "Hokusai musume: Oi Eijo ron" [A discussion of Hokusai's daughter Oi Eijo]. Ukiyo-e geijutsu [浮世絵芸術 = Ukiyo-e Art] 107 (September 1995). page number: Reproduced: fig. 7 url: Christie's New York. An Important Collection of Japanese Ukiyo-e Paintings. 27 October 1998, lot 84. page number: Reproduced: pp. 122–123, lot 84 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, “New Cleveland Indian Arrives at the CMA,” November 27, 1998, Cleveland Museum of Art Archives. page number: url: https://archive.org/details/cmapr4223 Cunningham Michael R., "Family Legacy", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 39 no. 07, September page number: Mentioned & reproduced: p. 4-5 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAMM1999-07/page/4 Gustafson, Eleanor H. "Museum accessions" The Magazine Antiques, December 1999, vol. CLVL no. 6. page number: Reproduced: p. 778 url: Rousmaniere, Nicole Coolidge. Births and Rebirths in Japanese Art: Essays Celebrating the Inauguration of The Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures. Leiden: Hotei, 2003. page number: Reproduced: pl. 8 url: Finkel, Irving L., and Colin Mackenzie, editors. Asian Games: The Art of Contest. New York: Asia Society, 2004. page number: p. 325 url: Grossman, Nancy, James T. Ulak, Marjorie Williams, and Laurence Channing. Art of Japan: Masterpieces from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2005. page number: Reproduced: p. 116 url: Carpenter, John T. Hokusai and His Age: Ukiyo-e Painting, Printmaking and Book Illustration in Late Edo Japan. Amsterdam: Hotei, 2005. page number: Reproduced: p. 102, n. 9 url: Meech-Pekarik, Julia, and John T. Carpenter. Designed for Pleasure: The World of Edo Japan in Prints and Paintings, 1680-1860; [Issued in Connection with an Exhibition held Feb. 27 - May 4, 2008, Asia Society and Museum, New York, New York]. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008. page number: Reproduced: p. 162, fig. 116 url: Clark, Timothy, Angus Lockyer, Ryoko Matsuba, Shūgō Asano, and Alfred Haft. Hokusai: beyond the great wave. New York, New York: Thames & Hudson in collaboration with the British Museum, 2017. page number: Reproduced: p. 298, cat. no. 196 url: Paget, Rhiannon. Hokusai: 1760-1849. Köln: Taschen, 2018. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: P. 49 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1998.178/1998.178_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1998.178/1998.178_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1998.178/1998.178_full.tif