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Utai no Shisho
Numata Gessai 沼田月斎 (1787-1864)
late 18th-early 19th century
- Medium
- Color and slight gold on silk
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- H x W (image): 69.5 x 74.2 cm (27 3/8 x 29 3/16 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
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
Fantasy and reality meet in the many images of courtesans and kabuki actors in the “floating world” (ukiyo) of Edo and other urban centers. Prints for the mass market and paintings for more privileged owners celebrated the beauty and artistic abilities of high-class courtesans and geisha, who were often skilled in poetry, calligraphy, music, and dance. Here, a geisha holds a shamisen, a three-stringed musical instrument, as a child looks on.
