hanging scroll;
painting
- Museum number
- 1913,0501,0.285
- Description
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Painting, hanging scroll. Two women by river: girl crouching on landing stage holding fishing-rod and -line and turning to face young woman beside her; woman standing with long hair combed out loosely; silk tree with pink fronded blossoms on embankment with stone behind them. Ink, colour and gold on silk. Signed and sealed.
- Production date
- 1890s
- Dimensions
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Height: 111.30 centimetres
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Width: 41.50 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Clark 1992
A girl crouches on a landing stage holding a fishing-rod and -line and turns to face the young woman who has stepped up beside her. Everything about the painting suggests midsummer: on the embankment faced with stone behind them a silk tree ('nemu no ki') displays its pink fronded blossoms and, as with the previous painting, the standing woman has her long hair combed out loosely to dry after washing. She wears a thin transparent kimono decorated with flying swallows and carries a round fan painted with a calling cuckoo. A somewhat bizarre and intrusive detail is provided by two crabs climbing up the wall.
Chikanobu was the most talented pupil of Toyohara Kunichika and as such represented the main line of the Utagawa school that had begun with Toyoharu in the 1760s. The long aquiline nose and slightly cross-eyed expression were the hallmarks of Utagawa painters since the Bunsei era (1818-30), but Chikanobu softens the effect by using a crimson outline. Bringing the posts of the breakwater to the very foreground of the image and fading the rippling water away into the distance create a sense of spatial recession that is new.
Literature:
'(Hizo) Ukiyo-e taikan' ('Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections'), ed. Narazaki Muneshige. Vol. 1, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1987, no. 185.
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Asahi 1996
桟橋にしゃがんでいる少女は釣り竿をもって糸（針）をいじりながら、近づいてきた若い女の方を振り向いたところ。紙全体から真夏であることがわかる。石垣が積まれた岸辺には合歓木が生えていて、淡紅色のギザギザの花を付けている。立っている女は前図と同様に洗い髪をしどけなく垂らして、飛燕をあしらった、肌もあらわな薄物をまとい、郭公が鳴いている図の団扇をもっている。石垣を登る蟹が２匹描かれ、少々奇異に映り、割り込んできたような印象をうける。
周延は豊原国周の弟子では筆頭にあげられる才能の持ち主で、1760年代の歌川豊春を祖とする歌川派の本流を次ぐ。鼻が長くてワシ鼻で、少し寄り目の顔貌表現は文政年間（1818－30）以降の歌川派の特徴である。周延は輪郭に臙脂を用いて表現を和らげている。最前景に護岸の杭をもってきて、水紋が遠ざかって消えていくのは新しい奥行きの表現である。
（伊藤紫織（千葉市美術館））
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1913
- Acquisition notes
- The collection of Japanese and Chinese paintings belonging to Arthur Morrison was purchased by Sir William Gwynne-Evans, who presented it to the British Museum in 1913.
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1913,0501,0.285
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.1579 (Japanese Painting Number)
