Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Wistful Love (Mono-omoi koi), from the series Anthology of Poems: The Love Section (Kasen koi no bu)
Kitagawa Utamaro Japanese
Not on view
Utamaro’s lasting fame was established with “large-head pictures” (ōkubi-e) such as this one, an immensely popular image of a woman caught in a moment of melancholy reflection on love. Portrayed against a pink mica background, the sitter has shaved eyebrows and blackened teeth that identify her as a married or “kept” woman. Each of the six prints in the series depicts a psychological manifestation of romantic love. In earlier portrait series, Utamaro had presented himself as a “physiognomist” par excellence of women, able to capture a state of mind by representing the physical characteristics of a person’s facial expressions.
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