Lives of Great People of the Occident (Taisei ijin den): Bernard Palis

A bearded man in a dark shirt and red sash swings an axe to break a cane chair, feeding its pieces into a fire at the lower left. A woman in a blue headscarf and yellow shawl holds an infant and runs with a small boy in a blue jacket on the right. A dome-shaped kiln or oven glows behind them, and a column of Japanese text fills the upper area.

Look closer: A small pile of broken chair fragments lies on the ground near the bottom center.

Artist

Unidentified artist

Date

ca. 1870

Medium

Woodblock print; ink and color on paper

Source

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Size

1389 × 2000 px

Credit (appreciated, not required for public-domain works): The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of William S. Lieberman, 2005