Description
Paintings of the courtesans who provided men with a sophisticated menu of appealing fashions, flattery, witty banter, music, dancing, and sexual services in the Yoshiwara district of the city of Edo (Tokyo) were the bread and butter of the Kaigetsudō studio, in whose style this work is painted. Their paintings emphasized bold, sweeping calligraphic ink lines in rendering the figures’ forms, along with high-contrast colors and patterns in their typically solitary subjects’ garments. Aside from the occasional prop or poem, the space around the dramatic figure was left entirely blank.
Provenance
(Kozo Yabumoto, Hyogo, Japan, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Kelvin Smith) (?–1973); The Kelvin Smith Collection, Cleveland, OH, given by Mrs. Kelvin [Eleanor Armstrong] Smith [1899–1998] to the Cleveland Museum of Art (1973–1985); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1985–)
Accession Number
1985.264
Medium
hanging scroll; ink and color paper
Dimensions
Overall: 182.9 x 53.4 cm (72 x 21 in.); Overall: 181.6 x 47.8 cm (71 1/2 x 18 13/16 in.); Painting only: 95.7 x 35.5 cm (37 11/16 x 14 in.); Painting only: 97.4 x 35.5 cm (38 3/8 x 14 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith