Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
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
On view from March 8, 2021–May 31, 2021
Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.
