Woman Cooling Herself
Utagawa Toyohiro Japanese
Not on view
A young woman in a sheer kimono sits on a bamboo bench alongside a pond, fanning herself to allay the summer heat. She has kicked off one of her geta sandals, and bent her left leg into a relaxed pose. Fully bloomed irises in the marshy pond indicate the fifth lunar month, the middle of summer.
The crest on the fan shows the character Kō or Ko 高 in the center of a triple-mimasu (rice-measuring box) motif that was used between 1772 and 1801 by the popular Kabuki actor Ichikawa Komazō (Matsumoto Kōshirō V, 1764–1838). Assuming that the painting was made while the actor was still using this crest, the work probably dates to about 1800, relatively late in Utagawa Toyohiro’s career, when his depictions of female figures became more elongated and willowy.
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