Courtesan
Medium
hanging scroll; ink and color paper
Dimensions
181.6 × 47.8 cm · painting only: 97.4 × 35.5 cm
Classification
Painting
Department
Japanese Art
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith
Accession Number
1985.264
Tags
About this artwork
Paintings of the courtesans who provided men with a sophisticated menu of appealing fashions, flattery, witty banter, music, dancing, and sexual services in the Yoshiwara district of the city of Edo (Tokyo) were the bread and butter of the Kaigetsudō studio, in whose style this work is painted. Their paintings emphasized bold, sweeping calligraphic ink lines in rendering the figures’ forms, along with high-contrast colors and patterns in their typically solitary subjects’ garments. Aside from th...