Browse: 10610 objects
Woman resting under a cherry tree with her maid
-
Details
- Associated place
- Date
- c. 1766 - 1768
- Artist/maker
-
Suzuki Harunobu (1725 - 1770) (designer)
- Material and technique
- nishiki-e (multi-block) woodblock print, with blossoms in gauffrage, printed with water-based vegetable pigments
- Dimensions
-
mount 40.5 x 27.8 cm (height x width)
print 26.5 x 19.6 cm (height x width)
- Material index
- Technique index
- Object type index
- No. of items
- 1
- Credit line
- Presented by Mrs Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding, 1952.
- Accession no.
- EAX.4866
-
Further reading
Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 24 August-30 November 2005, Beauties of the Four Seasons, Mitsuko Watanabe, ed. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2005), no. 1 on p. 2, illus. p. 3
Glossary (3)
gauffrage, nishiki-e, vegetable pigments
-
gauffrage
Decorative embossing technique. In Japanese prints, it is also sometimes called 'blind printing'.
-
nishiki-e
Nishiki-e literally means 'brocade pictures' and refers to multi-coloured woodblock prints.
-
vegetable pigments
Vegetable pigments were used to create coloured dyes for Japanese prints, paintings, and textiles. These pigments often faded over time due to the chemical reactions they underwent.
Location
-
- currently in research collection
Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.
Publications online
-
Beauties of the Four Seasons
Suzuki Horunobu created his own unique style of bijinga (pictures of beautiful women). Despite his brief activity as an artist, he produced over 1000 outstanding prints which included the mitate-e (parody pictures) inherent in egoyomi (illustrated calendar prints) with various novel subject matters such as contemporary beauties, mothers and children, young lovers, and casual scenes of everyday life.
This print shows a young beauty who has come with her maid to the park to enjoy the spring flowers, on a sunny day. She is resting in her sedan chair with an open bamboo blind, underneath a blossoming cherry tree, among dandelions and violets. She is about to light her pipe helped by her maid who crouches on the ground; an elegant ashtray box is placed in front of her knee. Her kimono is chiefly in slate-brown with a popular design of nami ni chidori (waves and plovers) while that of maid is of dark olive with yukimochi sasa (bamboo grass covered with snow). These colour combinations, with spring flowers, and a delicate yellow for the background produce a lively atmosphere.
This print is slightly faded.
© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum