Kitagawa Utamaro (1754-1806) | Yamauba and Kintaro | Edo period, 19th century

拍品描述

PROPERTY FROM THE PULVERER COLLECTION OF JAPANESE PRINTS woodblock print, signed Utamaro hitsu (Brush of Utamaro), published by Tsutaya Juzaburo (Koshodo), circa 1801-03; with collectors' seals of Hayashi Tadamasa, Henri Vever and Gerhard Pulverer Vertical oban: 34 x 25.4 cm, 13⅜ by 10 in. Traditionally depicted with bright red skin, Kintaro, later known as Sakata no Kintoki , is one of the most well known heroes of Japanese folklore. He was raised on the isolated slopes of Mount Ashigara by a mountain witch, or yama-uba. Utamaro typically portrays the yama-uba as a wild, beautiful woman looking after the mischievous infant. As many as fifty works on this subject by Utamaro are known, far exceeding those by other artists. Ranging from the humurous, sentimental and erotically charged, the reasons for Utamaro’s high output are not clear, although the public must have responded well to it. It is possible that this subject would have been safe from censorship, making it attractive from the publisher’s perspective.1 A similar impression of the same print is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession number RES.51.18, go to: https://collections.mfa.org/objects/321109 For another example of a print by Utamaro of the same subject, see Sotheby's, London, Masters of the Woodblock: Important Japanese Prints, 21 July 2022, Lot 11, go to: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2022/masters-of-the-woodblock-important-japanese-prints/kitagawa-utamaro-1754-1806-yamauba-kissing-kintaro 1. Shugo Asano and Timothy Clark, The Passionate Art of Kitagawa Utamaro, (London, 1995), nos. 386-91, pp. 226-227.

图片