Yoki takimono takite hitori fushitaru (To burn fine incense and sleep alone), Teisai Hokuba

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These three prints are examples of surimono, privately published woodblock prints popular in Japan in the early 1800s. Most surimono were commissioned by poets as New Year's gifts for their friends. The prints celebrated the return of spring and the renewal of life at the begining of the year.

The right print depicts a characteristic theme of surimono- beautiful women engaged in a domestic activity associated with the New Year. Here, two women make New Year's ornaments before a screen painting of Mount Fuji, one of three important New Year's images. In the middle print, the artist has assembled objects in a delicate composition: a painted screen, a miniature potted plum tree with tiny blossoms signaling spring, and a decorative set of a bow and arrows that is presented to boys at the New Year. In the left print, a woman dressed in a historic costume lies beside jars in which incense burns to induce a deeper sleep, thus insuring good dreams. As the three poems above her tell us, it is New Year's Eve and she dreams auspiciously of Mount Fuji and of the coming spring.

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A woman dressed in a costume of the late seveteenth century lies asleep beside a collection of implements for the incense ceremony. The picture is an illustration for Chapter 29 of The Pillow Book, a compendium of short essays by Sei Shōnagon, a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court during the tenth century. "To burn fine incense and sleep alone" is on a list of seven "Things which make the heart beat faster."

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Hokuba, one of the outstanding students of Hokusai, is known chiefly for his paintings of beautiful women. Hokuba loved detail, and he produced superb surimono on thick paper with gold, silver, and delicate colors. Surimono are prints which were published at great expense for private use. Generally they were commissioned by poets as gifts for friends to celebrate the begining of a new year. The woman portrayed in this print lies asleep beside a collection of implements for the incense game, a favorite pastime for women. The words, "To burn fine incense and to sleep alone," from the tenth-century Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon are written above.

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A woman in seventeenth-century costume lies asleep beside a collection of incense ceremony implements, illustrating a scene from The Pillow Book, a tenth-century collection of essays written by the imperial court lady-in-waiting Sei Shōnagon. Scattered throughout the book are lists of objects, situations, or activities that she associates with attitudes, emotions, or states of mind. "To burn fine incense and sleep alone" is the third item on a list of seven "Things which make the heart beat faster."

The print comes from a series commissioned by the Asakusa group of poets, whose circular red seal appears in the upper right corner. Three of the poems that follow the seal (reading from right to left) refer to New Year's Eve dreams and the coming of spring.