Minneapolis Institute of Art
Courtesan Plucking Daruma's (Bodhidharma) Beard
Inoue SetsuzanLinkedCulture matchlcp-8ec2147e4d9f
- Date
- first half 19th century
- Medium
- Hanging scroll, ink and color on paper
- Department
- Asian Art
- Institution
- Minneapolis Institute of Art
- Object ID
- 117166
From the Minneapolis Institute of Art record
The courtesan is plucking the beard of Bodhidharma, known in Japan as Daruma, the founder of Zen Buddhism. Reversing the sacred and the profane in a kind of parody was a favorite motif during the Edo period—in Edo slang, to “pull out one’s nose hair” implied a man enslaved by a woman. An especially popular theme was that of the Daruma and the courtesan, a play on the familiar subjects of Daruma’s nine years of meditation facing a stone wall, which caused the loss of his arms and legs, and the courtesan’s 10 years of trial-laden life at a brothel—the word “daruma” was slang for a courtesan. Asia
The authoritative record is held by Minneapolis Institute of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.
Get printable QR codesHide QR codes
Open QR codes for this object page and the museum record. They stay collapsed until needed.
Provenance & credit
As published by the source institution. Coverage varies — not every institution's open-data feed includes ownership history.
- Credit line
- Gift of the Clark Center for Japanese Art & Culture
Related across collections
Semantically similar works from Minneapolis Institute of Art and other institutions.