Playing the "Hand Game"

Description

This scene depicts three people playing a game in which three players make hand gestures simultaneously. The relationship among the gestures determines the winner. Known as hand games, during the eighteenth century they were popular in Japan among courtesans. In this version, the contestants use both hands, indicating a special variation such as the fox hand game, which features gestures for a fox, a village leader, and a hunter.

Provenance

Michener Collection, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, HI (? by 1968–?); (Dr. Richard Lane, Tokyo, Japan, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Kelvin Smith); The Kelvin Smith Collection, Cleveland, OH, given by Mrs. Kelvin [Eleanor Armstrong] Smith [1899–1998] to the Cleveland Museum of Art (?–1985); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1985–)

Playing the "Hand Game"

Hasegawa Yasumasa

c. 1760

Accession Number

1985.258

Medium

hanging scroll; ink and color on paper

Dimensions

Overall: 39 x 55.3 cm (15 3/8 x 21 3/4 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith

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