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Art of Asia
Course: Art of Asia > Unit 4
Lesson 11: Edo period (1615–1868)- Edo period, an introduction
- Tea bowl with dragon roundels
- Scenes from The Tale of Genji
- Genji Ukifune
- Dog chasing
- A portrait of St. Francis Xavier and Christianity in Japan
- Ogata Kōrin, Red and White Plum Blossoms
- Hon’ami Kōetsu, Folding Screen mounted with poems
- Archery practice
- The evolution of ukiyo-e and woodblock prints
- Utagawa Kunisada I, Visiting Komachi, from the series Modern Beauties as the Seven Komachi
- Hokusai, Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave)
- Beyond the Great Wave — Hokusai at 90
- Hokusai’s printed illustrated books
- Hokusai, Five Beautiful Women
- The Floating World of Edo Japan
- Hunting for fireflies
- Street scene in the pleasure quarter of Edo Japan
- Courtesan playing with a cat
- Courtesans of the South Station
- An introduction to Kabuki theater
- The actor Ichikawa Danzo IV in a Shibaraku role
- Fire procession costume
- Arrival of a Portuguese ship
- Matchlock gun and pistol
- Military camp jacket
- Military leader's fan
- An American ship
- The steamship Powhatan
- Conserving the Gan Ku Tiger scroll painting at the British Museum
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Courtesan playing with a cat
Laura Allen, Curator of Japanese Art at the Asian Art Museum discusses a monochrome woodblock print of a courtesan playing with a cat from the Grabhorn collection. Created by Asian Art Museum.
Want to join the conversation?
What-- Execute themselves? Huh? Did I miss something-- Order or be execute themselves-- Sounds like a hardcore business idea...(1 vote)
To "execute" here is like the term "executive" (not "executioner"). It means to "do" by themselves. In other words, someone could order the black on white print, then color or ink in in by himself or herself.(2 votes)
why does the cat look like monkey or a squirrel?(0 votes)- Looks like a cat to me. Perhaps it looks like something else to you because some of the lines blend in with the words on the box behind it.(1 vote)
Video transcript
the print shows one of the high-ranking courtesans the famous celebrities of the pleasure quarter she's sitting on a box and she is dangling a hand towel over the head of a small cat teasing it the sash tied at the front of her robe confirms her status as a courtesan curator Laura Allen her pose is kind of provocative she has her knees slightly spread apart that's not a genteel pose the Box on which his sitting is labeled with the name of business located in the city of Edo it was a confectionery shop in Lhasa do you and you can also see behind her legs the image of a monkey a Japanese macaque in Japanese masado that's the shops emblem so it's possible that the owner of the shop paid for the design of this print as a way of promoting its fortunes this print is an example of a large format that was used in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries perhaps to mimic the look of a more expensive hanging scroll it comes from the early phase of printmaking when most of the prints were just monochrome black outlines on paper one of the other two known remaining copies of this print is hand-colored suggesting that was an option for owners either to order or to execute themselves you