…; purchased from the dealer Oranda-Jin, 's-Hertogenbosch, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1990;¹¹Coll. cat. Goslings 1999, p. 44, cat. no. 91 by whom donated to the museum, 1991

Object number: RP-P-1991-672

Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse

The Itayagai is Number 21 in Oeda Ryuho's A Series of Shells as Brocade of the Coast, Kaitsukushi ura no nishiki, of 1749.

For general notes on the series, see RP-P-1991-561.

A woman dicing long strips on a cutting-board on a house veranda, another woman looking on from the room behind her.

The Board Roof Shell, Itayagai (Pecten [Novotola] albicans Schroeter), from the series A Matching Game of Poems, Kasen awase.

The association between the Board Roof Shell and the woman at the cutting-board is based on the general name for such a board or plank, ita. A somewhat similar scene is illustrated in Hokusai's series A Matching Game with the Genroku Poem Shells, Genroku kasen kaiawase, of 1821 (see RP-P-1958-278).

Two poems by —chuen Onoko and Sanshotei no Chikae [also Miyako no Chikae, earlier Kintaro, a judge of the Yomogawa].²²Kano, Kaian (ed.), Kyoka jinmei jisho (Dictionary of Names of Kyoka Poets). Kyoto: Rinsen shoten, 1977 (1928), p. 129.

Although the poem by Onoko refers to the itayagai, Chikae makes a rather intricate comparison between the Board Roof Shells brought ashore like pearls at Manaita Rock, Manaita Iwa, the 'Chopping-board Rock' at Enoshima Island.

Issued by the Yomogawa
Signature reading: Shinsai ga

M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 160

M. Forrer, 2013, 'Ryûryûkyo Shinsai, A Woman Cutting Vegetables, Japan, 1809', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200467487