Evening Snow on the Heater

Evening Snow on the Heater (Japanese: 塗桶の暮雪 Nurioke no bosetsu) is a Japanese print by Suzuki Harunobu from 1766.

It is one of a set of Eight Parlour Views (座鋪八景 Zashiki hakkei) which echoed the famous landscapes, Eight Views of Ōmi and Eight Views of Xiaoxiang. This image parodies their classic view of snow in the evening by showing a woman preparing wadding from white silk floss by placing it on a heater (nurioke). This style of analogy or allusion was known to the Japanese as mitate.^[1]

The picture was printed from a woodblock and then the silk floss detail was embossed (karazuri) to portray its softness.^[2]

The other woman in the scene is holding a pipe.^[2] She is a beauty and eyes the open window, expecting an assignation.^[2] This innuendo is characteristic of geisha in such portrayals of the Floating World.

References

1. Hockley, Allen (2003), "Hakkei Series: A Case Study", The Prints of Isoda Koryūsai: Floating World Culture and Its Consumers in Eighteenth-century Japan, University of Washington Press, pp. 55–57, ISBN 9780295983011
2. Evening Snow on the Heater (JP2449), Metropolitan Museum of Art

Other works in the set

• 

  Evening Glow of the Lamp (Andon no sekisho)

• 

  Returning Sails of the Towel Rack (Tenugui-kake no kihan)

Further reading

• Forbes, Andrew; Henley, David (2012), Suzuki Harunobu: 100 Beauties, Cognoscenti Books, ISBN 9781300468615
• Hayakawa, Monta (2001), The Shunga of Suzuki Harunobu: Mitate-e and Sexuality in Edo, Translated by Patricia J. Fister, Nichibunken, ISSN 1344-4972
• Lane, Richard (1978), Images from the Floating World, The Japanese Print, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780192114471