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Two women and a girl on the seashore
1735-1814
- Medium
- Color and gold on silk panel
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (image): 87.3 × 32.9 cm (34 3/8 × 12 15/16 in)
- Culture
- Japanese
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Asian Art
- Credit line
- Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), 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 Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Utagawa Toyoharu was an important and influential painter of ukiyo-e (pictures of the floating world) who established a lineage of successful painters and print designers that continued into the Meiji era (1868-1912). This charming scene at the seashore reveals the technical versatility of Toyoharu's painting, ranging from the soft brushstrokes and ink washes depicting the landscape to the fluent rendering of the stylized waves. Rich, opaque color, meticulously applied and accented with gold, is restricted to the womens' fashionable kimonos. Toyoharu's mastery of expression is apparent in this lively work: the womens' garments seem to be caught by a breeze as they wade out to gather clams; the young woman deftly catches a fish with her hand.
