Ebisu
Art in Asia and the West, San Francisco Museum of Art, Oct. 28- Dec. 1, 1957, no.17f.
Masterworks in wood: Japan and China, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR, Nov. 2- Dec. 5, 1976; Asia House, New York, NY, Jan.13- Mar.13, 1977, no.62.
Hokusai: Masterpieces from the Spencer Museum of Art, Richardson-North Collection, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, September 21, 2024 - February 1, 2025.
Ebisu
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868), 17th–18th century
Wood with traces of paint
Ebisu, the god of daily food, is one of the seven gods of good fortune, popularly revered together as a group. The figure holds a large fish, a sea bream, in one arm and a fishing pole in the other. The Japanese word for sea bream (tai) is a homonym for the last syllable of the word for happiness (medetai); therefore, the fish has become the symbol of good fortune. Ebisu is particularly revered by fishermen and tradesmen.
Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 33-1554
With Langdon Warner, Japan, by 1933;
Purchased from Langdon Warner by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1933.The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 2nd ed. (Kansas City, MO: The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1941), fig.1, 125.
The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, The William Rockhill Nelson Collection, 3rd ed. (Kansas City, MO: The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1949), 160.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 355.
Deborah Emont Scott, ed., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection, 7th ed. (Kansas City, MO: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2008), no. 42, 392.
Langdon Warner, The Craft of the Japanese Sculptor (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1976), pl. 77.
San Francisco Museum of Art, Art in Asia and the West, exh. cat. (San Francisco: The Museum, 1957), p. 33, no. 17f.
Donald Jenkins, Masterworks in Wood: China and Japan, exh. cat. (Portland, OR: Portland Art Museum, 1977), no. 62, 124-125.
