Primary sourcePainting1834

Servants Hold Their Noses While Their Master Uses the Latrine

Hokusai Katsushika · 1834

A comic woodblock print by Hokusai showing a samurai using an outdoor privy while his three attendants react to the smell.

A comic woodblock print made by Hokusai, showing his lighter, satirical side beyond his famous landscapes.

Ask Hokusai about this source View the original

Woodblock print of a samurai-era scene: a man in a privy house looks out over a wall with two swords at his side, while three servants nearby react. One holds a large box on a pole, one covers his nose and sits, and one crouches with his hands over his face. Japanese text appears in the margins. — Hokusai Katsushika, Servants Hold Their Noses While Their Master Uses the Latrine, 1834. Wellcome Collection.

About this source

What it is

This is a woodblock print made in 1834 by the Japanese artist Hokusai Katsushika. It shows a samurai standing in a latrine, his two swords beside him, while three of his attendants outside react to the smell — one holding his nose, another crouching with his hands over his face, and a third carrying a large box on a pole. Japanese text appears in the margins. The print is now held by the Wellcome Collection.

Why it matters

Hokusai is best known for grand landscapes, but he also made many comic, everyday-life prints like this one. It shows his sense of humour and interest in ordinary human moments, even among the samurai class usually shown with dignity and seriousness.

Look closer

What does the humour in this scene tell you about how Hokusai viewed social status?
Why might an artist choose to show a respected samurai in such an undignified moment?
What details in the print help tell the story without words?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Hokusai on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

More Hokusai sources

Meet the AI Hokusai →

Woodcut print in blue, cream and tan tones of a huge curling wave with claw-like foam fingers rising over two boats full of rowers. Small Mount Fuji appears in the distance under a pale sky. Japanese calligraphy sits in a cartouche at upper left.

Painting

Primary source

The Great Wave off Kanagawa

Katsushika Hokusai · 1830

Woodblock print page from Hokusai Manga with Japanese characters. Two men carry loads on poles over their shoulders; the man on the right carries a large hanging sack. A child carries a basket on a pole, and a crouching figure with a basket sits in the lower center beside a large basket.

Painting

Primary source

Man with Filarial Elephantiasis

Katsushika Hokusai · 1834

Woodcut print in ink on paper showing a scene at a wooden outhouse. A samurai with two swords peers out from a window of the latrine building. Outside, a bald man carries a large wooden bucket on a pole, and another man crouches in the foreground. Japanese text and a signature appear in the margins.

Painting

Primary source

Samurai Visiting a Latrine

Hokusai Katsushika · 1834

Colour woodblock print of Mount Fuji with a red-brown peak streaked with white snow, under a deep blue sky filled with rows of white, layered clouds. Dark green slopes fill the lower foreground. A vertical title cartouche with printed characters sits at the upper left.

Painting

Primary source

Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

Katsushika Hokusai · c. 1830-1832

Woodblock print of a red-and-yellow rowing boat on a dark blue pond with lotus leaves. Several women in red and pink robes sit and kneel in the boat, one at the stern holding a long pole, others reaching toward the water. A green bank with bushes is at left, and a poem cartouche is at upper right.

Painting

Primary source

Women in a Rowing Boat on a Lotus Pond

Hokusai Katsushika

Ready when you are

Start chatting with Hokusai now.

20 messages free · No credit card · Available in 50+ languages.

Trial Humy for free Get a quote for institutions