Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content
Seattle Art Museum (SAM)
menu

Bull and Rider

Photo: Spike Mafford
From the photography invoice: "This is a work for hire production and Spike Mafford does not retain any rights to the images created."

Bull and Rider

early 17th-late 19th century

Hanabusa Itcho

Japanese, 1652-1724

Herder boys are often seen herding buffaloes in Chinese and Japanese paintings, but in this painting, the boy riding a galloping bull is chasing a bat. The addition of the bat alters the painting’s meaning. The Chinese word for “bat” is a homophone with the word for “fortune,” and such a visual pun was adapted by the Japanese. Instead of searching for enlightenment as in Chan/Zen paintings, the boy here is chasing fortune.
Hanging scroll: Ink on paper
Image: 36 3/8 × 11 in. (92.4 × 27.9 cm)
Overall: 64 1/4 × 11 7/8 in. (163.2 × 30.2 cm); with knobs: 64 1/4 × 13 1/2 in. (163.2 × 34.3 cm)
Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection
34.152
Photo: Spike Mafford
location
Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Boundless: Stories of Asian Art, Feb. 8, 2020 - ongoing [on view July 16 - Dec. 5, 2021].
Published ReferencesFuller, Richard E., Japanese Art in the Seattle Art Museum: An Historical Sketch, Seattle, WA: Seattle Art Museum, 1960 ("Presented in commemoration of the Hundredth Anniversary of Diplomatic Relations between Japan and the United States of America"), no. 174

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM