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Follow the long fall of the willow branches down to her umbrella, then trace the white robe all the way to the black clog at the bottom.
The Heron Maiden comes from a popular kabuki play: a white heron rescued by a woodcutter comes back to him in the shape of a lovely young woman. Harunobu shows her hooded and dressed in white, under an umbrella beneath the hanging branches of a willow. Pillar prints like this, hashira-e, were long, narrow pictures often hung on the wooden posts inside Japanese houses.
Color woodblock print; hashira-e · 71.8 × 10.2 cm · Art Institute of Chicago
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Details and source
- Museum title
- The Heron Maiden
- Artist
- Suzuki Harunobu 鈴木 春信 Japanese, 1725 (?)-1770
- Date
- c. 1766/67
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; hashira-e
- Dimensions
- 71.8 × 10.2 cm (28 1/4 × 4 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.