painting;
hanging scroll
- Museum number
- 1881,1210,0.2311
- Description
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Painting, hanging scroll, right of pair with Jap.Ptg.2633. Woman standing and carrying metal sake kettle on stand; another woman seated and leaning on metal tobacco pipe. Ink-colour and gold on silk. Signed and sealed.
- Production date
- 1820s
- Dimensions
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Height: 186.30 centimetres (mount)
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Height: 118.70 centimetres
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Width: 73 centimetres (mount)
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Width: 53.30 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Clark 1992
Though originally mounted with different brocade surrounds and of slightly different sizes, these two hanging scrolls seem, nevertheless, to form a pair of scenes of geishas indoors and out. This is further borne out by the complementary poses - the two standing figures leaning in towards one another and the two seated women facing outwards in 'contrapposto'. The colour schemes of the two paintings are similar, too, each with kimonos of plain purple and green set off by florid accessories, sashes and undergarments in the characteristic fashions of geishas of the Bunsei era (1818-30). In the indoor scene the standing woman carries a finely worked metal sake kettle on a stand, while her seated companion leans on a similarly elaborate metal tobacco pipe. In the outdoor scroll the young geisha is seated on a garden bench, and both women have fans, suggesting summer. This standing woman has shaved eyebrows and blackened teeth, indicating that she is married.
Early in his career Tsukimaro designed woodblock prints in the manner of Utamaro, but from c. 1820 onwards he concentrated on large, finely executed paintings of amply proportioned beauties in a style showing the influence of the Kyoto Maruyama-Shijo school. These bear the signature Kansetsu.
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Asahi 1996
もとの表袴の裂も違い、サイズもわずかに異なるが、この二幅の作品は間違いなく屋内と屋外の芸者の姿を描いた双幅であろう。双幅であることは呼応しあうポーズによっても裏づけられる。立っている二人は互いに身を寄せあうように見え、座っている二人は互いに顔を背け合っていて対照的である。二幅の色使いは似通っていて、紫や緑の無地の着物を華やかな装身具•帯•下着で引き立てる、文政年間の芸者の風俗である。屋内の景では、立っている女が手に凝った作りの金属製の提子を台の上に乗せて運び、座っている方は同じような作りの煙管を杖にしている。屋外の方では、若い方の芸者が縁台に腰かけ、二人とも団扇を持って、夏であると知れる。立っている女は眉を落とし、お歯黒をしているので、既婚なのであろう。
早い時期の月麿は喜多川歌麿の様式で美人画を出版したが、文政3年（1820）頃からは専ら大きめの画面を丹念に仕上げた肉筆浮世絵を描いた。たっぷりした体軀の京都の円山四条派の影響を窺わせる美人画である。そのような作品には観雪の署名が記される。
（伊藤紫織（千葉市美術館））
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See Narazaki, Muneshige, "Kitagawa Tsukimaro no nikuhitsu ukiyo-e ni tsuite", 'Kokka', no. 1096 (August 1986), pp. 40-50.
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'2311. This is not in the Hishigawa, but in the Shijō style. Its date is early nineteenth century.'
'Seals KWANSETSU & Shisen' (unattributed annotations in the specially interleaved Japanese Study Room copy of Anderson 1886)
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2005 11 Apr-10 Jul, Seoul Arts Centre, Treasures of the World's Cultures
2010 Oct 19- 2011 Feb 14, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from prehistory to the present'
2014 Oct 7- 2015 Apr 28, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from prehistory to the present'
- Acquisition date
- 1881
- Acquisition notes
- The collection of over 2,000 Japanese and Chinese paintings assembled by Prof. William Anderson during his residency in Japan, 1873-1880, was acquired by the Museum in 1881. The items were not listed in the register, but rather were published separately as the 'Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of a Collection of Japanese and Chinese Paintings in the British Museum' (Longmans & Co, 1886).
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1881,1210,0.2311
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.2632 (Japanese Painting Number)
