Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞) / Toyokuni III (三代豊国) (artist 1786 – 01/12/1865)
Comparison of Popular Beauties (Ryūkō Bijin Awase - 流行美人合), three geisha at Nakachō (仲町 送り) from the series 'Eight Views of Tatsumi' (Tatsumi hakkei no uchi - 辰巳八景ノ内)
ca 1842
20 in x 14.875 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Kōchōrō Kunisada ga
香蝶楼国貞画
Publisher: Tsutaya Kichizō
(Marks 556 -seal 03-004)
Censor's seal: kiwame
National Diet Library
Tokyo Metropolitan Library
Waseda University - right panel
Shizuoka Prefectural Library - center panel
Shizuoka Prefectural Library - right panel
Van Gogh Museum - right panel - with a different title cartouche
National Museums of Scotland - middle panel
This is one of five triptychs published by Tsutaya Kichizō under the same title, Ryūkō Bijin Awase, each showing a three beautiful women - one per panel. Here, we believe that this represents three beautiful women who are visiting a shrine - 参詣の三婦女. However, a major dealer in Japanese woodblock prints in Japan say that these women are visiting the Oguri Restaurant.
The print in the Van Gogh Museum has a different title to this triptych, The 8 Views of Tatami, but that is because that is the name of the series.
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Illustrated in black and white in the Catalogue of the Van Gogh Museum's Collection of Japanese Prints by Charlotte van Rappard-Boon, Willem van Gulik and Keiko van Bremen-Ito, 1991, p. 147. The far right panel only.
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There is one particularly strange oddity on the right-hand panel. Next to the title cartouche is a smaller cartouche, one often reserved for more specific information, but in this case one that is filled with images of a butterfly, a mosquito, a plant with three leaves, a small looped rope (?) and a chestnut. This is a rebus which reads something like: Nakamachi okuri. This makes sense since these three beauties are visiting Nakachō.
beautiful women (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)
Tsutaya Kichizō (蔦屋吉蔵) (publisher)