Art, literature & history
The Strange Occurrence of Ukiyo Matahei and his Famous Paintings
1853
- Dating
- Exact year
- Held at
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Medium
- diptych, color woodblock prints
- Dimensions
- Overall: 37.8 x 26.4 cm (14 7/8 x 10 3/8 in.)
- Collection no.
- 1916.1160.b
- Attribution
- By the artist
- Image rights
- CC0 1.0License details
Utagawa Kuniyoshi. The Strange Occurrence of Ukiyo Matahei and his Famous Paintings. Utagawa Kuniyoshi; The Cleveland Museum of Art; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Wade. CC0 1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/). Full-frame proportional resize and JPEG compression.
Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art
About this artwork
The Strange Occurrence of Ukiyo Matahei and his Famous Paintings — Utagawa Kuniyoshi. 1853.
Medium: diptych, color woodblock prints. Dimensions: Overall: 37.8 x 26.4 cm (14 7/8 x 10 3/8 in.).
Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
In this image, otsu-e folk heroes have seemingly come to life, leaving their shadowy figures in the paintings in front of the artist. Included among them are a demon (oni), a monkey, the wisteria maiden, and the bald, tall-headed God of Longevity, Fukurokuju. Ukiyo Matahei, also known as Iwasa Matabei, was a famous printmaker who is also thought to have been a painter of otsu-e.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.