The Cup of Long Life

<p>This colorful print shows an engraved black-lacquer box and a red-lacquer sake cup with myriad characters. The box is inscribed “long life sake cup,” and the cup is covered with the many different versions of the character for “long life” (<em>kotobuki</em>). There were traditionally 100 variations of this character, emphasizing this number as the ultimate in longevity.<br>The host of this print was the poet, author, and essayist Kameda Hozan. Many examples of large-scale <em>surimono</em> by Shibata Zeshin exist; he must have set up a large establishment in order to cater to orders from poets and intellectuals. Since Zeshin was engaged in many official commissions in other media and had a large group of apprentices, he probably left most of the details of <em>surimono</em> production to his apprentices.</p>