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Your gallerySugawara of the Tsuruya with Attendants Mumeno and Takeno
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Look at the long pins fanning out from Sugawara’s hair, then at the broad sash hanging down her front, patterned with cranes flying through clouds.
The inscription at the upper right names the women: Sugawara of the Tsuruya, a house of pleasure, and her attendants Mumeno and Takeno. A high-ranking courtesan was marked out by her name, her clothes and her many hair ornaments, the Art Institute notes. Chōbunsai Eishi made the print about 1787, when courtesans walking with their attendants were a common evening sight in the Yoshiwara.
Color woodblock print; oban · 38.4 × 25.8 cm · Art Institute of Chicago
Read more at the Art Institute of Chicago
Sources
- Art Institute of Chicago: Sugawara of the Tsuruya with Attendants Mumeno and Takeno
- Art Institute of Chicago: Walking Courtesan, Possibly Sugawara of the Tsuruya House of Pleasure (Katsukawa Shunshō)
- Art Institute of Chicago: The Courtesan Takikawa of Ogiya, from the series Seven Beautiful Komachi (Bijin nana Komachi) (Utagawa Toyokuni I)
- Cleveland Museum of Art: The Courtesan Takihime and Attendants (from the series New Patterns of Young Greens) (Chōbunsai Eishi)
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Sugawara of the Tsuruya with Attendants Mumeno and Takeno
- Artist
- Chobunsai Eishi Japanese, 1756-1829
- Date
- c. 1787
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; oban
- Dimensions
- 38.4 × 25.8 cm (15 1/8 × 9 3/4 in.)
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.