Edo prints
| Design: | Suzuki Harunobu (1725-1770) | |||||
| Title: | An elegantly dressed beauty | |||||
| Size: | 22 x 15 cm | |||||
| Original woodblock print | ||||||
| Photography: | Jacques Commandeur |
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This is a page from book four of the five famous e-hon (i.e., picture books) containing a grand total of 166 woodblock prints designed by Harunobu that were published in 1770 in Japan under the name ‘‘Seirō bijin awase’’. The latter name translates into Beauties of the Green Houses, which were located in the Yoshiwara district of Edo. A 1917 reproduction of the print is displayed as number 7 on this page of my website, and the original is also shown as number 53 on this page of the Japanese National Diet Library website, both websites showing the complete contents of these five picture books.
The condition of this print is pretty shaky, especially when you compare it with the reproduction Haronubu prints shown on my Edo webpage. It is full of holes - caused by worms, water damage? I’m not sure.
References
- Chiba City Museum of Art (2002). Suzuki Harunobu. Chiba: Chiba City Museum of Art and Hagi Uragami Museum
Provenance: An auction held on the 16th of December 2009 by and at the The National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden, the Netherlands