The Kōrin Picture Book

1800s

The Kōrin Picture Book, 1800s. Nakamura Hōchū (Japanese, d. 1819). Set of two woodblock printed folding-books; ink and color on paper; book: 26 x 37.5 cm (10 1/4 x 14 3/4 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Seventy-fifth anniversary gift of Leighton R. Longhi 1991.118 Nakamura Hōchū prized the design acumen of earlier painter Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716) and honored him with this two-volume set of woodblock printed images. While Hōchū sampled the original compositions from Kōrin’s works, the prints in these books are heavily inflected with his own loose, whimsical drawing style. This set of books is in the orihon, or folding-book format.