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Kisegawa of the Matsubaya, Kitagawa Utamaro
Kisegawa of the Matsubaya, c. 1795/96

Kitagawa Utamaro

c. 1753–1806 · Ukiyo-e · 15 works

Kitagawa Utamaro designed woodblock prints in late eighteenth-century Edo, often focusing closely on women’s faces, gestures, hairstyles, and clothing. Working with publishers and the skilled carvers and printers who realized his designs, he made small differences of pose unusually expressive. Some prints identify well-known women; others present imagined types or states of feeling rather than observed portraits. Knowing that distinction leaves room to enjoy their immediacy while also seeing them as carefully constructed images of fashion, emotion, and social identity.

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15 works · 1783–1802

Compare the angle of a head with the position of a hand. What feeling comes from these few lines, before you read the title?

1783 · 4 works

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1790–1793 · 3 works

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In the museum: Ukiyo-e room · 2 works

1796–1802 · 8 works

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Kitagawa Utamaro is believed to have designed about 2,000 prints, and he is best known for pictures of beautiful women in the head-and-shoulders style he pioneered. Here are courtesans of the Yoshiwara, who were exploited in a system of forced and strictly controlled prostitution, women at daily tasks from the late 1790s, and a late painting on paper.

In the museum: Ukiyo-e room · 3 works

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Shared styles, periods, or traditions in the collection.

Original museum reproductions, with source records on every artwork page.

Artist information: British Museum (Ohisa of the Takashima Teashop, Love that Rarely Meets).

Public-domain art. An imagined museum; no museum affiliation.