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UTAGAWA KUNIYOSHI 歌川国芳 (1797-1861) Edo period (1615-1868), circa 1850s
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UTAGAWA KUNIYOSHI 歌川国芳 (1797-1861)
Beauty Under a Cherry Tree
Kakejiku (hanging scroll), ink and colours on silk in modern silk mounts by Paul Maruyama/Wills (1991), with ceramic jikusaki (roller ends) decorated with maple and cherry in enamels echoing the motifs on the kimono in the painting: A sumptuously dressed young woman seated under a blossoming cherry tree, her obi decorated with stylised hō-ō bird motifs, the lower part of her kimono with plum blossoms and maple leaves, the red under-kimono with cherry blossoms, her hair ornaments of horn; signed Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga and sealed Kuniyoshi; with a modern wood storage box
Overall: 179 × 48cm (70 1/2 × 18 7/8in); image: 88 × 35cm (34 5/8 × 13 3/4in) (2).
Footnotes
Provenance
Richard Kruml, London, 1985
Exhibited and Published
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 30 January–5 April 1998; Philadelphia Museum of Art, 24 April–28 June 1998
Robert Schaap, Heroes and Ghosts: Japanese Prints by Kuniyoshi, 1797–1861, exhibition catalogue, Netherlands, Society for Japanese Arts, 1998, p. 238, pl. 276
This is a rare subject for Kuniyoshi, an artist of the late Edo period better known for his actor and warrior prints, but for another example in the Roger Weston Collection, see Janice Katz and Mami Hatayama eds., Painting the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Masterpieces from the Weston Collection, exhibition catalogue, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2018, cat. no.121.














