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Beauty Reading a Letter
Tōensai Kanshi (Japanese, active c. 1751–72)
c. 1751–72
- Medium
- Hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- Painting: 86 x 16.4 cm (33 7/8 x 6 7/16 in.); Mounted: 159.4 x 20.3 cm (62 3/4 x 8 in.)
- Culture
- Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Japanese Art
- Credit line
- The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Ellen and Bruce Mavec
- 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 Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
A woman sits reading a letter. She has taken her right arm out of her sleeve and presses her hand against her pulse as if to still her excitement at the contents of the missive. Another woman’s silhouette is visible behind her through sliding paper doors. She spies on the first woman by peering through a tear in the paper.
