The Oiran Yoso-oi Seated at Her Toilet
Original title: The Oiran Yoso-oi Seated at Her Toilet
kurzbeschreibung
Around 1799 Kitagawa Utamaro made this ōban print (37.1 × 25.2 cm), which presents the courtesan Yoso-oi blowing her nose in her boudoir, with a servant standing behind her. It was printed in ink and colour on paper.
Description
Yoso-oi crouches on the floor in the foreground, a small bowl in her hand, and blows her nose. Ornamental pins sit in her elaborately dressed hair, and her robe carries a floral pattern. A servant wearing a red obi stands behind her and looks down at her. A green curtain closes off the room; earth tones, red, blue and white govern the palette. Light falling from the front spreads evenly across faces and fabrics.
Context
In the later phase of his career, around 1799, Utamaro turned increasingly to intimate scenes from the everyday life of courtesans; the sheet belongs to the bijin-ga genre. Yoso-oi was a well-known figure of the Yoshiwara district of Edo, present-day Tokyo. Portraits of such women circulated as single sheets or within series and often served to advertise brothels.
Impact
Because the woman is going about an ordinary bodily task and sits at ease while doing it, the picture acquires something unusually familiar. The calm, balanced arrangement and the restrained colours contribute to a quiet, almost reverent mood.
Technique
As a nishiki-e, the print was built up from several colour blocks, each fixing one area of colour in turn. Crisp contours and flatly applied colour follow ukiyo-e practice. Printing used water-based colours on hand-made paper.
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Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art · Public Domain (CC0 1.0)