Shoki (Zhong Kui) Vanquishing a Demon

Object Details

• Artist

  Katsukawa Shunsho 勝川春章 (1726-1792)

• Label

  The exorcist Shoki (Chinese, Zhong Kui) was a popular deity in China from the middle of the Tang dynasty (618-906), and was known in Japan from the Kamakura period (1185-1333). In Chinese legend, he first appeared to the emperor Xuanzong (713-756), who dreamt that a demon that was in the palace grounds was dispelled by a larger demon who wore a hat, robe, belt, and boots. The large demon, Zhong Kui, revealed that he had been a scholar who had committed suicide after failing the imperial examinations a century earlier. In gratitude to an earlier emperor, Zhong Kui had vowed to rid the world of demons. Images of Shoki were widely used during the Edo period. Displayed at the end of the year or for the Boys' Festival on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, Shoki was believed to ward off evil. Images painted entirely red were hung to avert epidemics, especially of smallpox. Here the artist Shunsho has depicted Shoki in the narrow format of a pillar print (hashira-e) that would have substituted for a painting in modest households.

• Collection

  National Museum of Asian Art Collection

• Exhibition History

  Masterful Illusions: Japanese Prints from the Anne van Biema Collection (September 15, 2002 to January 9, 2003)

• Origin

  Japan

• Credit Line

  The Anne van Biema Collection

• Type

  Print

• Restrictions and Rights

  Usage Conditions Apply

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• Date

  1700s, 1710s, 1720s, 1770s, 1780s, 1790s, 1730s, 1740s, 1750s, 1760s, 1800s, 1810s, 1820s, 1830s, 1610s, 1650s, 1640s, 1630s, 1620s, 1690s, 1840s, 1680s, 1850s, 1670s, 1860s, 1660s

• Name

  Katsukawa, Shunsho

• Place

  Japan

• Topic

  Hashira-e, Art, Zhong Kui, Demon, Edo period, Japan, (1600 - 1868), Japanese Art, Anne van Biema collection, Ukiyo-e

• Culture

  Buddhists, Japanese

• Object Type

  Prints