Little Cuckoo Escaping from the Rain

Artist Utagawa Hiroshige I 歌川広重 (Japanese, 1797–1858)

Dateearly 1830s

Mediumwoodblock print; ink and color on paper; chu-tanzaku

Dimensions37.2 x 12.7 cm (14 5/8 x 5 in.)

ClassificationsPrints

Credit LineJohn Chandler Bancroft Collection

Terms

Object number1901.59.1483

Descriptionbird: Little cuckoo, Cuculus poliocephalus Latham
Label TextThe mysterious Little Cuckoo is known for letting out its gentle, chattering call to announce an early summer rainstorm before rapidly darting ahead of the raindrops: Two voices crossing High over Gomosaki- A cuckoo and rain. Futagoe wa / gomosaki koezu / hototogisu The Little Cuckoo flying over mountain-woods forms an elegant, "determined" silhouette, with its slender body, pointed beak and wings and its yellow eye-ring. Since the feathers have a brownish-red tint, it is probably a female. The female cuckoo, which has a chest-plumage with black, horizontal stripes like that of a raptor, frightens brooding birds from their nests. She then parasitically lays her egg in a host nest leaving it to hatch as a foster nestling. Two chu-tanzaku-format prints were economically printed side-by-side on vertical oban-format sheets. Lines along the left edge of the print (covered by mat) prove that the work was once paired with Hiroshige's equally famous design of a Scops Owl sleeping on a pine tree branch.ProvenanceJohn Chandler Bancroft Collection

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