What-- Execute themselves? Huh? Did I miss something-- Order or be execute themselves-- Sounds like a hardcore business idea...

Name: Courtesan playing with a cat
Uploaded: 2015-03-24T22:42:08Z
Description: 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.

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.

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Course: Art of Asia > Unit 4

Lesson 11: Edo period (1615–1868)

Courtesan playing with a cat

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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.

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Alanna
Posted 9 years ago. Direct link to Alanna's post “What-- Execute themselves...”
What-- Execute themselves? Huh? Did I miss something-- Order or be execute themselves-- Sounds like a hardcore business idea...
Button navigates to signup pageComment on Alanna's post “What-- Execute themselves...”
(1 vote)
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- David Alexander
  Posted 8 years ago. Direct link to David Alexander's post “To "execute" here is like...”
  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.
  Comment on David Alexander's post “To "execute" here is like...”
  (3 votes)
DanyoungKang
Posted 8 years ago. Direct link to DanyoungKang's post “why does the cat look lik...”
why does the cat look like monkey or a squirrel?
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(0 votes)
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- David Alexander
  Posted 8 years ago. Direct link to David Alexander's post “Looks like a cat to me. P...”
  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.
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  (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