The Collection
The American Wing Ancient Near Eastern Art Arms and Armor The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing Asian Art The Cloisters The Costume Institute Drawings and Prints Egyptian Art European Paintings European Sculpture and Decorative Arts Greek and Roman Art Islamic Art Robert Lehman Collection The Libraries Medieval Art Musical Instruments Photographs Antonio Ratti Textile Center Modern and Contemporary Art

Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.

Poetry Contest with Poets from Various Periods, Tameie Version (Tameie-bon Jidai fudō uta-awase-e)

mid-13th century

Not on view

Crucial to the development of a distinctive aesthetic of Genji paintings in the ink-line drawing (hakubyō) mode was the emergence of the poet-portrait tradition (kasen-e), in which portrayals of poets accompanied transcriptions of their verses. Faces are rendered in expressive detail, while garments are suggested by stylized outlines. Here, scholar-poet Taira no Sadafun (died 923), shown on the right, faces off against courtier-poet Fujiwara no Shigeie (1128–1180).

Poetry Contest with Poets from Various Periods, Tameie Version (Tameie-bon Jidai fudō uta-awase-e), Handscroll mounted as a hanging scroll; ink on paper, Japan — Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

為家本時代不同歌合絵

Title: Poetry Contest with Poets from Various Periods, Tameie Version (Tameie-bon Jidai fudō uta-awase-e)

Period: Kamakura period (1185–1333)

Date: mid-13th century

Culture: Japan

Medium: Handscroll mounted as a hanging scroll; ink on paper

Dimensions: Image: 11 3/4 × 19 7/16 in. (29.8 × 49.4 cm)
Overall with mounting: 47 × 27 1/2 in. (119.4 × 69.9 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Lent by Harvard Art Museums/ Arthur M. Sackler Musewn, Bequest of the Hofer
Collection of the Arts of Asia

The Met

Asian Art at The Met

The Met's collection of Asian art—more than 35,000 objects, ranging in date from the third millennium B.C. to the twenty-first century—is one of the largest and most comprehensive in the world.