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Teahouse Waitress behind a Bamboo Blind, from the series Eight Views of Tea Stalls in Celebrated Places (Meisho koshikake hakkei)
Kitagawa Utamaro Japanese
Not on view
A young woman, her face partly hidden by a bamboo blind, checks her makeup in a pocket mirror. In this series Utamaro draws on the popular conceit in East Asian poetry, painting, and print design of a constellation of eight views—usually referring to famous natural scenery, but here refocused on waitresses at eight popular tea stalls in Edo. The accompanying seventeen-syllable verse associates this sitter with the Nijūken (Twenty-mat) stall in the Asakusa district:
Mō hito ni
shigaramu Tsuta no
Nijūken
Her admirers cling to
Tsuta, the “Ivy” maiden,
of Nijūken tea stall.
—Trans. John T. Carpenter
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