UTAMARO: oban tate-e (38.5 x 25.2 cm.); a three-quarter length portrait on a silver mica ground of a beauty holding a round fan patterned with a paulownia leaf and dressed in a black gauze kimono with three white paulownia crests, in pink, red and white underrobes and in a blue and yellow obi patterned with flower scroll, from the series Fujin sogaku juttai "Ten forms of feminine physiognomies", signed Soken Utamaro ga "drawn by Utamaro the physiognomist" and published by Tsutaya Juzaburo, censor's seal kiwame- good impression, very good color, minor rubbing and soiling, especially at edges, minor holes restored, coiffure retouched at the browline, mica intact but with some creasing

Details

UTAMARO: oban tate-e (38.5 x 25.2 cm.); a three-quarter length portrait on a silver mica ground of a beauty holding a round fan patterned with a paulownia leaf and dressed in a black gauze kimono with three white paulownia crests, in pink, red and white underrobes and in a blue and yellow obi patterned with flower scroll, from the series Fujin sogaku juttai "Ten forms of feminine physiognomies", signed Soken Utamaro ga "drawn by Utamaro the physiognomist" and published by Tsutaya Juzaburo, censor's seal kiwame- good impression, very good color, minor rubbing and soiling, especially at edges, minor holes restored, coiffure retouched at the browline, mica intact but with some creasing

Provenance

Charles Gillot
Mme. Gillot
Renate Beck

Lot Essay

One of the five designs of the important first series with the title Fujin sogaku juttai (originally there were to be ten prints) published by Tsutaya Juzaburo circa 1792/1794. In his discussion of the print in Ukiyo-e jiten (Tokyo, 1971), Yoshida Teruji surmises that the print is a portrait of the famous courtesan Takashimaya Ohisa. Here she wears a gauze robe and carries a fan decorated with a paulownia crest in and with which she is pictured in two other okubi-e by Utamaro.

Five other examples of this very rare print have been published from the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Late Werner Schindler, the Worcester Art Museum, the Musee Guimet and a private American collection.

Published in Vignier and Inada, Utamaro, Estampes japonaises...et exposees au Musee des Arts Decoratifs en Janvier 1912 (Paris, 1912), pl. XVII, no. 39, lent by Mme. Charles Gillot and in Yoshida Teruji, Utamaro zenshu (Tokyo: Takamizawa Mokuhanjo, 1941), p. 55

For other examples of the print see Shibui Kiyoshi, Ukiyo-e zuten, vol. 13, Utamaro (Tokyo, 1965), p. 49, Eiko Kondo, Masterpieces of Ukiyo-e from the Schindler Collection (Tokyo, 1985), pl. 53, Kikuchi Sadao, et al., Ukiyo-e taikei, vol. 5, Utamaro (Tokyo, 1973), pl. 127 and Shibui Kiyoshi, Taiyo ukiyo-e (Tokyo, 1975), pl. 12

The Schindler impression was sold in these Rooms for a record price for a Japanese print at the time. See sale #6356, April 22, 1987, lot 29, (the subject was mistakenly indentified as Ohisa's principal rival Naniwaya Okita).