Description
Courtesans were on display to potential clients through bars, an aspect of their jobs that also afforded an opportunity to have socially distanced interactions with fellow entertainment district denizens. Here, a courtesan with a crane motif on her obi sash converses with her lover, a young man carrying a miniature theater. The poem in the cloud above them comes from New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (新古今和歌集) and reads,
Although I yearn,
I do not speak as days and months,
pass by behind my cedar gate.
How can I endure keeping this secret within?
Although I yearn,
I do not speak as days and months,
pass by behind my cedar gate.
How can I endure keeping this secret within?
Provenance
Duret; Unknown private collection, Paris, France (before 1921); (Walpole Galleries, New York, NY, January 21, 1921 sale, lot 243) (January 21, 1921); (Yamanaka & Co., sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (1921); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1921–)
Accession Number
1921.349
Medium
color woodblock print
Dimensions
Sheet: 29 x 21.7 cm (11 7/16 x 8 9/16 in.)
Classification
Credit Line
Gift of J. H. Wade
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