Teahouse Waitress behind a Bamboo Blind, from the series Eight Views of Tea Stalls in Celebrated Places (Meisho koshikake hakkei)
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.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
Mō hito ni
shigaramu Tsuta no
Nijūken
Her admirers cling to
Tsuta, the “Ivy” maiden,
of Nijūken tea stall.
—Trans. John T. Carpenter
Artwork Details
- 喜多川歌麿画 「名所腰掛八景」すだれ
- Title: Teahouse Waitress behind a Bamboo Blind, from the series Eight Views of Tea Stalls in Celebrated Places (Meisho koshikake hakkei)
- Artist: Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, ca. 1754–1806)
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: 1795–96
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper; vertical ōban
- Dimensions: Frame: 20 7/8 × 15 9/16 in. (53 × 39.5 cm)
Image: 15 × 10 in. (38.1 × 25.4 cm) - Classification: Prints
- Credit Line: Lent by Lee E. Dirks
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art