Noh Drama Mask of an Old Man (Kojo)

16th century

1 of 3

Object Label

In this scene capturing a crowded pushcart market on Hester Street on New York’s Lower East Side, George Benjamin Luks positions the viewer directly at street level and in close proximity to the array of men, women, and children who throng the foreground. Although the painting has been interpreted as a sympathetic vignette of Jewish life, it shows a closer kinship to Luks’s colleague Robert Henri’s method of representing people as racial or ethnic “types” rather than as specific individuals (see nearby work). Here, the figures are presented in profile, with particular attention to skin color and physical features, while the subject matter relates to a series of caricatures of Jewish peddlers—which engage with anti-Semitic stereotypes—that Luks created for Truth magazine in the 1890s.

Caption

Noh Drama Mask of an Old Man (Kojo), 16th century. Wood, traces of polychrome, horsehair, 8 1/4 x 5 1/4 in. (21 x 13.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Designated Purchase Fund, 86.85.1. Creative Commons-BY (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 86.85.1_front_PS6.jpg)

Gallery

Not on view

Collection

Asian Art

Title

Noh Drama Mask of an Old Man (Kojo)

Date

16th century

Period

Muromachi Period

Geography

Place made: Japan

Medium

Wood, traces of polychrome, horsehair

Classification

Masks

Dimensions

8 1/4 x 5 1/4 in. (21 x 13.3 cm)

Credit Line

Designated Purchase Fund

Accession Number

86.85.1

Rights

Creative Commons-BY

You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this three-dimensional work in accordance with a Creative Commons license. Fair use, as understood under the United States Copyright Act, may also apply. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.

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