Women Walking by a Moat
1780s
Medium
Color woodblock print; two sheets from oban triptych
Dimensions
36.2 × 49.5 cm (14 5/16 × 19 1/2 in.)
Classification
woodblock print
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
21582
Art Historical Context
**Women Walking by a Moat is a captivating color woodblock print by Katsukawa Shunchô, master of ukiyo-e from Japan's Edo period in the 1780s. This work, comprising two sheets from an obanptych—measuring 36.2 × 49.5 cm—depicts elegant women strolling gracefully beside a moat, their flowing kimonos and parasols evoking the refined beauty of urban life in Edo (modern Tokyo). Shunchô, a student of the renowned Katsukawa Shunshō, specialized inbijin-ga* (images of beautiful women), blending delicate figures with poetic landscapes to capture the "floating world" of pleasure and transience. The med...
About the Artist
Katsukawa Shunchô · 1780–1801
Katsukawa Shunchō was a Japanese designer of ukiyo-e woodblock prints active from approximately 1780 to 1795, one of the most graceful practitioners of the art of bijinga — pictures of beautiful women. He trained in the studio of Katsukawa Shunshō, the founding master of the Katsukawa School, whose pupils also included the young Hokusai. Shunshō's school was primarily known for realistic portraits...