Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Women Playing a Poetry-matching Card Game
Teisai Hokuba Japanese
Not on view
Fully dressed in layers of robes that spill out behind her, hair carefully coiffed and held in place with tortoiseshell combs and battens, a courtesan of the highest rank (oiran) is passing the time with her full retinue, enjoying a card game known as “One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets” (Hyakunin isshu). The highest-ranking courtesans, who studied waka poetry and were educated in many of the traditional arts, were able to support a substantial retinue, seen here grouped in a circle around their mistress. The two girls in red are her young attendants (kamuro), who may someday become courtesans-in-training (shinzō) like the figure sitting at the left of the oiran, wearing a multi-patterned robe with dangling sleeves (furisode). The two women in brown robes with matching obi tied behind them are low-ranking courtesans (tomesode shinzō), while the woman behind them might be a servant to the oiran.
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