The Fitzwilliam Museum - University of Cambridge

60 Katsushika Hokusai
Major Acquisitions
(1760–1849)
Convolvulus and Tree frog
c..1832
Colour print from woodblocks
on paper. Publisher: Nichimuraya
Yohachi.
26.3 x 38.5 cm
Purchased from the Reitlinger
Fund with grants from The Art
Fund and the MLA/V&A
Purchase Grant Fund.
P.10-2006
Hokusai is best known as a landscape
artist, but he also excelled in other
genres that portrayed the beauty of
nature, or kachÿfugetsu (literally, ‘flower,
bird, wind and moon’). Convolvulus and
Tree frog comes from the extremely rare
series of ten prints known as Large
Flowers, which is Hokusai’s masterpiece
in this genre. Each print features a flower
and an insect (frogs and other
amphibians were classified as insects).
Hokusai was probably influenced and
inspired by Utamaro’s great trio of natural
history books on the themes of insects,
birds and shells (all three of them in the
Fitzwilliam Museum’s collection).
Utamaro’s books, with their playful
comic verse, may also have prompted
the humour evident in this print, which
teases the viewer to find the frog hidden
in the convolutions of the Convolvulus,
or Morning Glory. The design of
Convolvulus and Tree frog complements
that of another print from the series,
Irises and Grasshopper, which was
already in the museum’s collection. Both
are outstanding in condition, preserving
intact the delicate blues and purples that
have faded in most surviving impressions.