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A bathing woman and a maid in a bath house
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Details
- Associated place
- Date
- c. 1797 - 1824
- Artist/maker
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Utagawa Toyokuni (1769 - 1825) (designer)
- Associated people
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Tsuruya Kinsuke (active c. 1797 - 1824) (publisher)
- Material and technique
- nishiki-e (multi-block) woodblock print, printed with water-based vegetable pigments
- Dimensions
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mount 55.5 x 24.3 cm (height x width)
print 36.9 x 24.3 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.4676.b
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Further reading
Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 24 August-30 November 2005, Beauties of the Four Seasons, Mitsuko Watanabe, ed. (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2005), no. 27 on p. 58, illus. p. 59
Glossary (2)
nishiki-e, vegetable pigments
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nishiki-e
Nishiki-e literally means 'brocade pictures' and refers to multi-coloured woodblock prints.
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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
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- 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
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Beauties of the Four Seasons
Utagawa Toyokuni specialized in portraits of kabuki actors. After about 1790 he produced bijinga for the publisher Izumiya Ichibei and later created his own style while also incorporating the styles of Kiyonaga and Utamaro.
The triptych shows a woman taking a bath while a maid washes her back. This type of bath could only accommodate one person and so long baths were not permitted.
Interestingly, these are depicted with shadows to give them a three dimensional look, which for prints is uncommon.
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