Courtesan

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–)

Courtesan

Kaigetsudō Ando

1700s

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

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith