Minneapolis Institute of Art

Young Maidens

attr. Yamaguchi Soken

Date

first half 19th century

Medium

Hanging scroll, from a set of five, ink and color on paper

Department

Asian Art

Institution

Minneapolis Institute of Art

This hanging scroll—one of a set of six—shows women of different social class and economic status engaging in fashionable activities. One girl, seated in the foreground, reads a printed book of One Hundred Poets like the one on view in the case nearby, with a portrait of a poet accompanied by their poem (the book is open to the same page as hers). One Hundred Poets was a collection of 100 poems by preeminent poets from the 600s to the 1200s. It was considered the foundation for the study of writing and an entrypoint for beginning readers. The text is made easier to read with the addition of ruby characters (annotation placed above or next to Chinese characters to provide the pronunciation), indicating that her book is relatively easy to read even with basic education. Japan, Asia

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