A pair of Tanzaku poem cards by Otagaki Rengetsu mounted on paper in a silk border enclosed as a pair in a single, custom made wooden box. Matching in all details, one has black lacquer and one red lacquer wooden rollers.
The poem on the scroll with red rollers reads: Tatakai shi tachi no chishio wa / The blood from swords that battled aki fukaki momiji ni misuru / seen in the red leaves of deep autumn Miyoshino no yama. / here in the Miyoshino mountains.
The poem on the scroll with black rollers reads: Sasou mizu ari to wa nashi ni / Although no water invites me ukikusa mo / I am like floating grass nagare te wataru mi koso yasukere. / drifting here and there living easily.
Ink on paper in the original mountings, the scrolls measure 26 x 148 cm (10-1/2 x 58-1/4 inches). Minor wrinkles typical of age.
Otagaki Rengetsu (1791-1875) was born into a samurai family, she was adopted into the Otagaki family soon after birth, and served as a lady in waiting in Kameoka Castle in her formative years, where she received an education worthy of a Lady of means. Reputed to be incredibly beautiful, she was married and bore three children; however, her husband and all children died before she was twenty. Remarried she bore another daughter, however that child too perished and her husband died while she was just 32. Inconsolable, she cut off her hair to join the nunnery at Chion-in Temple, where she renounced the world and received the name Rengetsu (Lotus Moon). However, this was not the end, but only the beginning of a career as artist and poet which would propel her to the top of the 19th century Japan literati art world.
