Artwork · 18th century · Suzuki Harunobu

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Night Rain at the Double-Shelf Stand, from the series Eight Parlor Views (Zashiki hakkei)

Suzuki Harunobuca. 1766Woodblock print (first edition); ink and colors on paper, medium-sized print (chuban)28.6 × 20.3 cm

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At a glance

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In a quiet Japanese room, a seated young woman has her hair tied while another woman stands and watches.
Suzuki Harunobu designed this woodblock print around 1766 in Edo, today's Tokyo.
The title promises night rain, yet there is not a drop of rain in the picture. Solving that puzzle is half the fun.

Reading the picture

5 places to look closer

Tap a number on the painting to jump to its note, or a close-up to see that spot in the whole picture.

Zoom in on the standing woman at the left. She tilts her head down and rests one hand lightly at her collar. A yellow comb sits in her piled-up hair. Her face is only a few fine lines, but you can read a calm, watchful mood in it.
Now the middle. A child with a shaved head is tying the seated woman's hair. A round rabbit design decorates the child's sleeve. A long white cord for binding the hair hangs straight down.
Look at the lower shelf of the red stand on the right. A black iron kettle covered in white dots sits on a brazier. The base has a cloud-shaped panel, and a small lidded jar waits beside it. These are tools for making tea.
Up in the top right corner is a round window. Yellow bamboo strips cross in a grid, tied at the joints with black cord. Behind them the opening is pale and closed off, so you cannot actually see what the weather is doing outside.
Drop down to the lower left corner. Two brushed characters read Kyosen, with a red seal below. That is not Harunobu's name. It is the pen name of the man who commissioned the first edition of this series. Right beside it sits a single teacup on a stand.

When it was painted

Around 1765, Suzuki Harunobu was about forty and working in Edo for some unusual clients. One of them was Ōkubo Tadanobu, a samurai in the direct service of the shogun. Under the pen name Kyosen, he led a circle of wealthy print lovers.

At New Year the circle traded picture calendars. These were puzzle prints that hid the year's long and short months inside the image. Each member wanted a finer print than the next, and the craft of printing many color blocks on one sheet grew quickly. Harunobu was the artist who designed them.

Kyosen also commissioned the Eight Parlor Views. The set is a witty spoof of a famous Chinese theme, the Eight Views of the Xiao and Xiang rivers, with household things standing in for the landscape. Kyosen wrapped the prints in a printed folder and gave them to friends. Each sheet carried his name and seal as the one who had thought up the design. The Met's sheet comes from that first edition.

Later the publisher Shōkakudō reprinted the designs and sold them to the public. This time they carried Harunobu's name instead of Kyosen's. Harunobu died in 1770. The print passed through the Francis Lathrop Collection, and the Metropolitan Museum bought it in 1911.

Look again at the kettle on the lower shelf of the red stand. The Met reads the seated woman as lulled by the soft sound of water simmering in it. In a room without a single raindrop, that sound stands in for the night rain.

The painter

Suzuki Harunobu

1725–1770

All paintings by Suzuki Harunobu →

Night Rain at the Double-Shelf Stand, from the series Eight Parlor Views (Zashiki hakkei)

Questions to think about

Look for itWhich object in the room might make a sound like rain falling at night?
Why?Why would Harunobu turn a famous landscape into an ordinary scene inside a home?
What about you?Is there an everyday sound in your own life that reminds you of rain? What is it, and when do you hear it?

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