Kaigetsudo Dohan (act. ca. 1704-16)
Kaigetsudo Dohan (act. ca. 1704-16)

Courtesan playing with a cat

Details
Kaigetsudo Dohan (act. ca. 1704-16)
Courtesan playing with a cat
Sumizuri-e woodcut of a courtesan engaging a spotted cat with a cloth patterned with a starfish tie-dye pattern, her own robes patterned with scrolling foliage; the cake box on which she is seated advertises the establishment of the confectioner, inscribed Onkashi dokoro Asakusa Komagata-cho Masaruya (the Masaruya confectioner in Komagata in Asakusa [Edo]), and the side of the box under the beauty's legs is of a monkey (saru), a play on one syllable of the name; the right side of the print signed Nihon giga Kaigetsu matsuyo Dohan zu (an amusing picture drawn in the Japanese style by Dohan, a "last leaf" of Kaigetsu[do]), sealed Dohan and published (square seal) by Igaya Kan'emon of Motohama-cho--fine impression, some restored worming
ooban tate-e: 25 3/8 x 12¼in. (64.5 x 31cm.)
Provenance
Henri Vever (1854-1943), sold Sotheby's, London, Highly Important Japanese Prints, Illustrated Books and Drawings, from the Henri Vever Collection: Part 1, 26 March 1974, no. 9
Literature
Jack Hillier, Japanese Prints & Drawings from the Vever Collection, vol. 1 (London and New York: Philip Wilson Publishers for Sotheby Parke Bernet and Rizzoli International, 1976), no. 21.

Lot Essay

Only two other impressions of this print are known, one in the Grabhorn Collection and one in The Art Institute of Chicago. Unlike the present example, both of those impressions are trimmed.

For the Grabhorn version, see Laura W. Allen and Melissa M. Rinne, eds., The Printer's Eye: Ukiyo-e from the Grabhorn Collection (San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, 2013), cat. no. 5, p. 36; Julia Meech, "Edwin Grabhorn: Printer and Print Collector," Impressions (Journal of the Japanese Art Society of America, awarded the 2010 Donald Keene Prize for the Promotion of Japanese Culture by Columbia University) (2003): p. 57, fig. 3; Yamaguchi Keizaburo, Gurabuhon korekushon ukiyoe meihin ten Masterpieces of Ukiyo-e from the Irma Grabhorn-Engel Collection, exh. cat. (Tokyo: Bun'yusha, 1995), pl. 6 (ex coll. Charles Morse); Howard A. Link, Narazaki Muneshige and Yamaguchi Keizaburo, Honoruru bijutsukan Honolulu Academy of Arts, Edwin and Irma Grabhorn Collection, vol. 10 of Ukiyoe shuka (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1979), no. 40.

For the Art Institute version, see Suzuki Juzo and Yamaguchi Keizaburo, Shikago bijutsukan 1 The Art Institute of Chicago 1, vol. 4 of Ukiyoe shuka (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 1979), pl. 2; Helen C. Gunsaulus, The Clarence Buckingham Collection of Japanese Prints, Vol. 1: The Primitives (Chicago: The Art Institute, 1955), p. 25 (ex coll. Doucet and Fuller); Donald Jenkins, The Art Institute of Chicago: Ukiyo-e Prints and Paintings of the Primitive Period, 1680-1745, An Exhibition in Memory of Margaret O. Gentles, exh. cat. (Chicago: The Art Institute, 1971), no. 116.

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