Kusōzu: the death of a noble lady and the decay of her body. Watercolours.

Galleries and Reading Room

Library

Shop

Café

We’ll be closed on Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 July, reopening as usual on Wednesday 8 July.

We're running paid user research studies to improve Wellcome Collection online

Take part in research

<p>The lady is identified with the 9th-century poetess Ono no Komachi (Chin, op. cit., pp. 296-309). In the first painting she is seated indoors at a low red table, wearing a kimono, with a scroll in her left hand, upon which she has written her farewell poem: she is pallid, and her expression is preoccupied. In the second, she has died, and is laid out on the floor covered to her shoulders with a blanket, with a lady and a gentleman in attendance. In the third, her body is out of doors, naked apart from a loincloth, on a mat, the lower part of which is folded up over her legs; her skin now has flesh tones. In the fourth, putrefaction has set in, and so it continues until she is a heap of bones, having been pecked at by various animals along the way. The final painting shows a stupa or sotoba, the symbol of the Buddha</p>

Kusōzu: the death of a noble lady and the decay of her body. Watercolours.

Licence and re-use