painting
- Museum number
- 1914,0512,0.8
- Description
-
Painting, one of a pair. Scenes in house of pleasure: large parlour rooms opening onto gardens with scenes of courtesans chatting, reading, plying customers with food and drink; in yard a group of henchmen resting on travelling cases, waiting for masters. Ink, colour and gold on paper.
- Production date
- 1661-1673
- Dimensions
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Height: 40.60 centimetres
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Width: 30.90 centimetres
- Curator's comments
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Clark 1992
Ukiyo-e painting developed out of certain strands of genre painting of the first half of the seventeenth century and in particular screens showing scenes inside houses of pleasure, such as the famous pair bequeathed by the mother of Lord Tokugawa Yoshinao of Kii to the Soo Temple upon her death in 1642 ('NU', vol. 1 (1982), no. 34). In such screens, often painted on a gold-leaf ground, extensive and luxurious apartments and gardens are populated with a host of courtesans and their generally samurai patrons. The present pair of small paintings represent the final stage of this lineage, their compositions in effect scenes extracted from parts of earlier screens and the gold-leaf backgrounds imitated with just a sprinkling of cut gold leaf. The fashions of the women are dominated by the tie-dyed fabrics and narrow 'obi' characteristic of the Kambun era (1661-73), and although the painting style has become abbreviated and impoverished in comparison with the great genre screens, even at this late date the facial expressions have considerable animation and charm.
Both compositions show large parlour rooms opening on to gardens with scenes of courtesans chatting, reading, playing the 'shamisen', challenging customers to games of 'sugoroku' (a kind of backgammon) and plying them with food and drink. In the yard a group of henchmen sit resting on travelling cases, waiting for their masters to tire of their pleasures. One can imagine that such small paintings might be pasted in groups on to sliding doors or collected together and mounted in an album, and clearly they would have served as important precursors to early Ukiyo-e painted handscrolls and print series of scenes in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter, such as 'Yoshiwara no tei' (late 1670s) by Moronobu.
Literature:
'Hizo ukiyo-e taikan' (Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections), ed. Narazaki Muneshige. Vol. 1, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1987, col. no. 7, BW no. 2.
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Asahi 1996
肉筆浮世絵は17世紀前半の風俗画、特に室内遊楽図屏風から発展した。その代表的なものとして、紀伊藩主徳川義直の母が寛永19年（1642）に相応寺に遺した屏風一双（楢崎宗重監修『肉筆浮世絵』第1巻 1982年 集英社 34図）などが挙げられる。この種の屏風は金地で、遊女と馴染みの侍客であふれる豪華な屋敷と庭が描かれることが多い。この一対の小品はそれら室内遊楽図様式の最終段階を示しており、構図は先行する屏風の一場面を抜き出し、金粉をちりばめて金箔地に似せている。また女性の多くは寛文年間特有の絞り染めの着物に細帯を締めている。様式的には省略され、衰退したものになっているにもかかわらず、前の時期に描かれた風俗図屏風の大作と比べても人物の表情は生気に富み、魅力的な表現となっている。
本作品の両画面に描かれるのは、庭に開け放たれた大きな居間でおしゃべりをしたり、読書したり、三味線を弾いたり、またすごろくをしながら客にしきりに飲食をすすめている遊女の姿である。庭では侍者の一団が挟箱の上に腰掛けて休んでおり、遊興にふける主人を退屈して待ちわびている。襖に貼られていたか、もしくは画帖に綴じられていたと考えられるこれらの小品が、肉筆浮世絵の絵巻や、師宣の「吉原の躰」（1670年代後期）のような吉原遊郭を主題にした版画連作に大きな影響を与えていることは明らかである。
（増渕鏡子（福島県立美術館））
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1914
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1914,0512,0.8
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.1396 (Japanese Painting Number)
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Miscellaneous number: Anderson No. 2054 (annotation in Anderson 1886)
