Two Courtesans Playing Musical Instruments Artist: Utagawa Kunisada (Japanese, 1786–1865)

ca. 1825

Asian Art

By appointment, Duffy Study Room

歌川国貞 遊女奏弦図 江戸時代


This interior scene shows two courtesans at musical practice. The woman at left plays the koto, a thirteen-stringed Japanese zither, and the one at right, a three-stringed lutelike shamisen. Accomplishment in the art of musical performance was essential for courtesans. The broadly fanning pine on the gilded screen in the background reinforces the importance of music in the courtesans’ lives, recalling as it does the similar pine that serves as the backdrop for Noh-theater performances. The names of the poets associated with this print (in addition to the poems themselves) can be read in at least a few different ways, depending on the interpretation, and are often humorous. The name of the poet whose poem is at far left could be read as “Hey, this tune is groovy!” and the other poet’s name as “The Sly Fox in the Elms.”

Medium

Surimono; polychrome woodblock print with brass and silver pigment and gauffrage

Dimensions

sheet: 7 7/8 × 10 13/16 in. (20 × 27.5 cm)

Credit Line

Gift of Virginia Shawan Drosten and Patrick Kenadjian, B.A. 1970

Accession Number

2020.54.5

Geography

Japan

Culture

Japanese

Period

Edo period (1615–1868)

Classification

Prints

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Joan B. Mirviss (dealer), New York; sold to Virginia Shawan Drosten and Patrick Kenadjian, Koenigstein im Taunus, Germany, 1996 (on loan to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 2017–2020); given to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 2020
Bibliography
  • "Selected Acquisitions," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (2020–21), 161, ill
  • Sadako Ohki and Adam Haliburton, The Private World of Surimono: Japanese Prints from the Virginia Shawan Drosten and Patrick Kenadjian Collection (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2020), 153–154, no. 41, ill
  • Joan B. Mirviss and John T. Carpenter, Jewels of Japanese Printmaking: Surimono of the Bunka-Bunsei Era 1804–1830 (Tokyo: Ota Memorial Museum of Art, 2000), 142–43, no. 96
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

color woodcuts, human figures (visual works), surimono

Subject

Noh courtesans koto music musical instruments pines poems poetry screens (furniture) shamisen vases women

Inscriptions

Poem 1:\r\nGōshū Shigaraki Tsukinoya Tsuruhiko:\r\nHearing the sound\r\nof a songbird in a cage,\r\nI lifted the reed blinds \r\nto see that it was \r\nthe jeweled tones of the zither.\r\n\r\nPoem 2:\r\nGōshū Shigaraki Hanadoriya (Kachōya) Noriyasu [from the same place]:\r\nWould that the very perfume of \r\nthe warbler's voice, ringing out \r\namid the redolence of plum, \r\ncould lodge within my sleeves.\r\n\r\nTranslated AH Final.\r\n\r\n\r\nPoem 1:\r\nko no uchi ni\r\nnaku uguisu no\r\nkoe kikeba\r\nmisu wo hedate te\r\nhikeru tamagoto\r\n\r\n籠のうちに　なくうくひすの　声きけは\r\nミすをへたてゝ　ひける玉琴　　　　　　\r\n　　　　　　　　江州シカラキ 槻の屋 弦彦\r\n\r\nPoem 2:\r\nume ga ka no\r\nnaka ni nakitatsu\r\nuguisu no\r\nkoe no nioi mo\r\nsode ni tometashi\r\n\r\n梅か香の　中に啼たつ　鴬の\r\n声の匂ひも　袖にとめたし　　　　　\r\n 同　花鳥屋 乗康\r\n\r\nReference: Ota p.142 (cat.no. 96)

Signed

Gototei Kunisada ga (low right)

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