“Harunobu’s Bathtub,” from the series: A Hundred Shades of Ink of Edo
Paul Binnie Scottish
Not on view
A naked young woman squeezing a bath sponge squats in a bathing area, her right hand outside the plane of the composition. Grayish clouds of steam surround her. The tattoo on her right arm is derived from a 1767–68 print by Suzuki Harunobu that shows two women, naked from the waist up, bathing and grooming themselves. Here Binnie singled out one of the women in the tattoo, seen washing her hair in a wooden washbasin.