Courting Komachi (Kayoi Komachi), from the series Seven Fashionable Figures of Ono no Komachi (Furyu nana Komachi yatushi sugata-e)
Utagawa Toyokuni I (Japanese, 1769–1825)
Edo period (1615–1868), about 1792
- Medium
- Color woodblock print; oban
- Classification
- Dimensions
- 37.5 × 26 cm (14 3/4 × 10 1/4 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
In this print, a contemporary courtesan and her attendant walk at night, presumably to visit a client. The latter holds a lantern that shines a beam of light across the design, changing the color of all that passes through it. The sheen on the lit portion of the courtesan’s sash was created with animal glue, an adhesive made of rendered animal tissue. This scene is meant to recall an episode in which famed poet Ono no Komachi asked one of her suitors to visit her on 100 successive days in order to prove his love.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
