- Museum number
- 1982,0701,0.18
- Description
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Painting, hanging scroll. Beauty arranging hair: young woman seated looking into pocket mirror to arrange hair; paper tissue held in teeth; knees crossed in lap. Ink, colour and gold on silk. Signed and sealed.
- Production date
- 1818-1830
- Dimensions
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Height: 170 centimetres (with mount)
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Height: 85.10 centimetres
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Width: 54 centimetres (with mount)
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Width: 34 centimetres
- $Inscriptions
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- Curator's comments
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Clark 1992
A young woman, probably the daughter of a well-to-do merchant family, is seated looking into her pocket mirror to arrange her hair, and the paper tissue held in her teeth suggests she has corrected her makeup as well. Her knees are crossed in her lap in the ungainly manner of a still-awkward teenage girl.
Eisen's treatment of her costume is a 'tour de force' of dark rapid ink outlines and rich, gaudy patterning. Particularly impressive is the handling of the transparent gauze over-kimono painted with flowering pinks, through which can be seen the scarlet under-robe decorated with a more stylised design of cherry blossoms against a wicker fence. The broad 'obi' is of a bold blue and white floral brocade, with gold threads worked into the background.
The rich, almost overripe style of nineteenth-century Ukiyo-e paintings and prints has often in the past been dismissed as 'decadent'. Certainly many nineteenth-century images of women have little of the quiet restraint of, say, a Harunobu print of the late 1760s, confronting the viewer in a more directly passionate way. They are representative products of the last and most highly wrought phase of Edo culture.
The careful way in which the signature is written with neat, square characters suggests a relatively early date in Eisen's 'oeuvre', perhaps the early-mid Bunsei era (1818-30).
Literature:
Hillier, Jack, 'The Harari Collection of Japanese Paintings and Prints'. Vol. 1, London, Lund Humphries, 1970, no. 90.
'(Hizo) Ukiyo-e taikan' ('Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections'), ed. Narazaki Muneshige. Vol. 1, Tokyo, Kodansha, 1987, no. 139.
Smith, Lawrence, 'Japanese Art: Masterpieces in the British Museum', with Victor Harris and Timothy Clark. London, British Museum Publications, 1990, no. 201.
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Asahi 1996
裕福な商家の娘とおぼしい若い女性が座り込み手鏡を覗き込んで髪を直している。懐紙を口にくわえて化粧も直そうというのであろう。片膝を立てて足を組んだぎこちないポーズは未熟な10代の少女のものである。
娘の衣装の描写は英泉の偉業といっていいほどである。濃い墨で手早く輪郭線をとり、豪華で派手な模様をあしらう。特に印象的なのは薄物の撫子模様の着物の描写で、下から網垣に桜を図案化した赤い着物が透けて見える。幅広の帯は錦で青と白の大柄の花模様の背地には金糸の刺繍まで施されている。
成熟した、ほとんど爛熟したともいえる19世紀の浮世絵の様式は、今まで「デカダン（頽廃）」として切り捨てられてきた。19世紀の描かれた女性像の多くには確かに、例えば1760年代後半の鈴木春信の版画の女性像にみるような抑制された静けさはほとんどない。しかしながら、鑑賞者により直接的に情熱的に訴えかける。19世紀の浮世絵は江戸文化の最後のもっとも精巧な面を示す産物である。
署名がきちんとした楷書で丁寧に記されていることから、英泉としてはわりに早い時期、文政年間初期から中期にかけての作品であろう。
（伊藤紫織（千葉市美術館））
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
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Exhibited:
2003 18 Oct-14 Dec, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Treasures of the World's Cultures
2004 17 Jan-28 Mar, Kobe City Museum, Treasures of the World's Cultures
2004 10 Apr-13 Jun, Fukuoka Art Museum, Treasures of the World's Cultures
2004 26 Jun-29 Aug, Niigata Bandaijima Art Museum, Treasures of the World's Cultures
2007 Jun 13-Oct 7, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from Prehistory to the Present'
2011 Feb 14- Jun 13, BM Japanese Galleries, 'Japan from prehistory to the present'
- Acquisition date
- 1982
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1982,0701,0.18
- Additional IDs
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Asia painting number: Jap.Ptg.Add.703 (Japanese Painting Additional Number)
