Wer die Pferde beruhigt
Monkeys on Horseback
Two menuki in gold, each a galloping horse with a monkey on its back. On one, the monkey crouches low while the horse turns its head back toward it, mane flying. On the other, the monkey sits upright in a wide hat, one hand in the mane, as the horse stretches out at full gallop. The hat dresses the monkey like a man. Both tails stream behind.
The Walters Art Museum explains that horses and monkeys appear together so often because monkeys were believed to keep horses calm within a stable. Monkeys, it adds, are often shown as grooms. On these menuki the groom has become the rider.
The menuki carry no signature and no paper. The attribution to Kyo-kinko, the metalworkers of the capital, is the collection’s own and rests on manner and material.
Menuki. Mumei, Kyo-Kinko (eigene Zuschreibung). Kin. Affen auf galoppierenden Pferden. Späte Edo-Zeit. Privatsammlung, erworben in Europa.
In the collection
- Type
- Tosogu › Menuki
- School
- Kyo-Kinko
- Period
- Edo-Zeit › Späte Edo-Zeit
- Material
- Kin
- Motif
- Tiere und Vögel
