Description
Hair heavy with golden pins, the stunning Wakaume turns her head to glance behind her. She belongs to the highest rank of courtesan, the zashiki-mochi, or “having-her-own-suite” rank in the Yoshiwara’s Tamaya brothel. Though the cartouche identifies two kamuro, or child attendants, only one can be seen peeking out from behind Wakaume’s peach-colored kimono. One cartouche identifies the members of the scene, while a second cartouche presents a kyoka, or “comical poem,” by Hachi no Nanko. The verse celebrates the famous beauty: “Blossoming from out of/ Her snow white robe/ Even her name is fragrant / The flower Wakaume (young plum)”
The work boasts very good color, impression and state, but the luxury of this printing rests in the pink mica ground. This iridescent background enhances the elegance of the high-ranking beauty and Utamaro’s exquisite composition. Printed straight to the paper, the ground mica created a silver-white surface, yet the printer could manipulate this effect by printing a color beneath the mica. In the case of Utamaro’s Wakaume from Tamaya, the iridescent pink likely resulted from the under printing of a safflower rose. As mica is particularly vulnerable to humidity and handling, it is stunning that the mica ground remains so beautifully intact on this print.
The print Courtesan Wakaume from the Tamaya is a definitive masterpiece of Utamaro. Other impressions of this work can be found at The Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In Paris this past spring, a similar pink mica portrait by Utamaro set a world record price for Japanese prints at auction.
About the artist
Utamaro Kitagawa was a ukiyo-e master known for his slender and graceful bijin-ga, or "pictures of beautiful women." By the final decade of the 18th century, artists had shifted away from purely idealized representation to increasingly individualized portraiture. Utamaro led this vanguard within the bijin-ga genre. From courtesans to teahouse waitresses, Utamaro took a psychological approach to his subjects, imbuing his beauties with a subtle sense of personality and emotion. His imagery of the Yoshiwara, Edo’s legalized prostitution district, captured these women’s public personas as models of fashion as well as their private personas through behind-the-scenes glimpses of their lives as individuals.
Born in the mid-1750s, Utamaro studied under the scholar and artist Sekien Toriyama (1712-1788) until Seiken’s death. While the influence of Kiyonaga Torii (1752-1815) coursed through Utamaro's early woodblock prints, his personal style soon asserted itself. Utamaro’s reputation grew steadily throughout the 1780s and 1790s as he refined his style and defined himself as the premier designer of bijin-ga. A prolific artist, he illustrated kyoka poetry albums and ehon (illustrated books), completed elegant paintings, as well as shunga (erotic prints). Around 1791, Utamaro directed his focus to solitary half portraits of women (okubi-e), rather than the full-length, group designs that had historically dominated the bijin-ga genre. In 1804, Utamaro faced legal trouble for his triptychs depicting scenes of the 16th-century military leader Hideyoshi Toyotomi. Though ostensibly historical, these works’ wry allusions to courtesans of the floating world were deemed disrespectful by government censors. Utamaro was imprisoned for a short time. Some believe that this incident broke his spirit, for he died in Edo two years later. Though his style continued directly under students such as Utamaro II and Kikumaro (later Tsukimaro), Utamaro left a profound impact on the bijin-ga genre and would influence artists for centuries to come. This effect was not limited to Japan. During the 19th century, Utamaro's woodblock prints entranced Western artists and collectors. Mary Cassat was particularly taken by Utamaro’s portrayals of motherhood, exclaiming, “you who want to make color prints, you couldn’t imagine anything more beautiful.”[1]
1. Mathews, Nancy Mowll. Mary Cassatt: A Life. New York: Villard, 1994. Print, 194.