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Your galleryThree Beauties of Yoshiwara (Seiro san bijin)
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Compare the tall woman’s fan of hairpins with the two wide green hats in front of her, and find the gourd and the pole hung with straw tassels.
Dated 1793, this print shows three beauties of the Yoshiwara, Edo’s licensed pleasure quarter: a tall woman with her hair swept up and fixed with many long pins, and two young companions in matching wide hats. The Asian Art Museum points out that prints like this presented courtesans as ideal figures, dressed and set so finely that the hardship of brothel life disappeared from view.
Color woodblock print; oban · 38.4 × 25.4 cm · Art Institute of Chicago
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Three Beauties of Yoshiwara (Seiro san bijin)
- Artist
- Kitagawa Utamaro 喜多川 歌麿 Japanese, c.1753-1806
- Date
- 1793
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; oban
- Dimensions
- 38.4 × 25.4 cm (15 1/8 × 10 in.)
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Ukiyo-e c. 1600–1900
View in the AtlasGaller’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.