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On her outer robe, look for the Gods of Good Fortune and for Enma, king of hell, writing his judgments, then for the character for long life in gold and silver.
Kawanabe Kyōsai painted this composition several times. Legend tells of a courtesan of the 1400s, carried off by bandits, who wore a robe showing the Buddhist hells, believing her suffering paid for sins of a past life. Here Kyōsai makes it a parody: she stands in for the goddess Benzaiten, and the other Gods of Good Fortune fill her robe. Such pictures, the Asian Art Museum notes, passed over the forced and tightly controlled lives of most women in the pleasure quarters, many of them bought as girls.
Hanging scroll; ink, color, gold, and silver on silk · Image: 144.2 x 67.6 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Hell Courtesan
- Artist
- Kawanabe Kyōsai (Japanese, 1831–1889)
- Date
- 1871–89
- Medium
- Hanging scroll; ink, color, gold, and silver on silk
- Dimensions
- Image: 144.2 x 67.6 cm (56 3/4 x 26 5/8 in.); Overall: 233.7 x 92.1 cm (92 x 36 1/4 in.)
- Credit line
- The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Artist’s life 1831–1889
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.