Bequest of Edward L. Whittemore · The Cleveland Museum of Art
Image: public domain (CC0) · Museum record & image source ↗
Takigawa of the Ōgiya from the series A Selection of Eastern Beauties
- Date
- c. 1798
- Medium
- color woodblock print
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 33 x 22.3 cm (13 x 8 3/4 in.)
- Country / context
- Japan
- Movement / tradition
- Japanese art and printmaking
- Collection
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Pathway
- Japanese art and printmaking ↗
The courtesan Takigawa worked for the Ōgiya, "House of Fans" brothel, one of the most prestigious in the Yoshiwara. Here, she smokes tobacco, a fashionable trend in 18th-century Edo. Fashion-conscious women in Edo purchased prints of the most famous beauties just as contemporary women buy fashion magazines to learn about the latest styles in make-up and hair. The strands of hair at her temple were printed from thin pieces of wood left in relief when the areas on either side of them were carved away.
Collection text · The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0Start with what you can see: shapes, surface, colour and scale. How might the listed materials affect the way this object was made and experienced?
Looking prompt · an invitation to observe, not a historical interpretation.Follow a connection.
Explore the tradition ↗
↗South Wind, Clear Sky, from Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji
Katsushika Hokusai
↗Driving Rain at Shōno, from Fifty-Three Stations of the Tokaidō
Utagawa Hiroshige
↗The Flirtatious Type, from Ten Types in the Physiognomy of Women
Kitagawa Utamaro
↗A Low Tide Pentaptych
Utagawa Kuniyoshi