Kitagawa Utamaro (1754-1806) | Glass goblet (Giyaman) | Edo period, 19th century

Hayashi Tadamasa (1853-1906)

Edith Ehrman (1932-1974)

Felix Tikotin (1893-1986)

Gerhard Pulverer (b. 1930)

Narazaki Muneshige, ed., Hizo ukiyo-e taikan, Puruvera korekushon [Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in Western Collections: The Pulverer Collection] (Tokyo, 1990), no. 45.

Doitsu Puruvera korekushon ukiyo-e hanga meihinten [Masterpieces of Ukiyo-e from the Pulverer Collection] (Tokyo, 1990), frontispiece and p. 40, no. 1-48.

Shugo Asano and Timothy Clark, The Passionate Art of Kitagawa Utamaro (London, 1995), cat. no. 243.

Doitsu Puruvera korekushon ukiyo-e hanga meihinten [Masterpieces of Ukiyo-e from the Pulverer Collection], exhibited at the following venues: 

Matsuzakaya Department Store, Osaka, 27^th December 1990 - 8^th January 1991

Matsuzakaya Department Store, Ginza, 24^th - 29^th January 1991

The British Museum, London, The Passionate Art of Kitagawa Utamaro, 31 August – 22 October 1995; and Chiba City Museum of Art, 3 November – 10 December 1995

A young and beautiful tea-house woman sips elegantly from a glass goblet held to her lips. She wears a striped outer kimono, embellished by hand-blowing pigment onto the paper using a pipette. The glass goblet is printed with mica. The pale pink collar of her inner kimono is delicately decorated with flowers and her elaborate hairstyle boldly fills the upper section, counterbalanced by her tortoiseshell hair ornaments reaching diagonally left to right. Set against a grey background, Utamaro successfully conveys a sense of his subject’s personality through simple line and thoughtful colour.

As noted by Asano and Clark, the reference to plum in the poem indicates that the young woman is most likely to be from the Umegae tea-house in Shiba, whose women were celebrated for their beauty and portrayed more than once by Utamaro.¹

From a series of eight bust portraits of celebrated tea-house beauties, where the koshikake of the title, means ‘seat’ or ‘bench’ and alludes to the seats for customers at a tea-stall. The other seven designs from the series are: ‘Teacup’ (Chawan), ‘Hand-towel’ (Tenugui), ‘Bamboo blind’ (Sudare), ‘Mirror’ (Kagami), ‘Hands inside the kimono’ (Futokorode), ‘Arranging the hair’ (Kami-naoshi), and ‘Round fan’ (Uchiwa).

The series was first published by Iseya Rihei, however the blocks were acquired later by Ezakiya Kichibei and the prints re-issued. Therefore, the earliest impressions feature the mark of Iseya Rihei (as the present lot). Also indicative of the earliest printings is the use of the pipette-blown pigment on the robe (as here) – an additional process that would have added time and cost to the production. Amongst the later Ezakiya printings of the series there are quite a few different editions or states. Some impressions have the poems removed and some also have the series title removed.² Some colour blocks were also changed and embellishments such as pipette-blown pigments were not applied.

The poem has been translated as:

The spring breeze carries

a scent — yet not

from the plum blossoms.

Haru kaze ni

umegae naranu

kaori ari

Other impressions (published by Iseya Rihei) are in the collections of the Tokyo National Museum, object number A-10569_532; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession number 21.6408.