Asakusa Rice Fields and Torinomachi Festival (Asakusa tanbo Torinomachi mode), from the series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei)"
Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797-1858)
1857
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; oban
- Classification
- Dimensions
- 36 × 24.1 cm (14 1/4 × 9 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Japan
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of Asia
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This peaceful scene of a cat perched on a windowsill takes place on the second story of a brothel. Hairpins, a wad of tissue paper, and a towel hint at the room’s owner. The cat itself may be a stand-in for the woman, as sex workers were often associated with the grace and aloofness of felines. In the distance, small figures move in a procession to a nearby temple. On festival days, the pleasure quarters were open to all, and the courtesans took extra customers.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
