The Burke Collection
Courtesan and Her Attendants under a Willow Tree
Click to enlarge
276-1

Artist

Unchō

(雲潮; fl. late 18th century)

Catalogue information

Edo period, 1796

Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk

92.7 x 34 cm (36 1/2 x 13 3/8 in.)

Donated to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York by the Mary and Jackson Burke Foundation in 2015

Literature

Narazaki Muneshige 1966, p. 34
Narazaki Muneshige
1966
“Unchō hitsu Ryūka bijin zu” (“Beautiful Women under a Willow Tree,” by Unchō). Kokka, no. 894 (September): 34.

See full bibliography

;
Narazaki Muneshige 1969, pl. 64
Narazaki Muneshige
1969
[Editor]. Zaigai hihō: Ōbei shūzō Nihon kaiga shūsei (Japanese paintings in Western collections). Vol. 3, Nikuhitsu ukiyo-e (Ukiyo-e paintings). Tokyo: Gakushū Kenkyūsha.

See full bibliography

;
Murase 1975, no. 93
Murase, Miyeko
1975
Japanese Art: Selections from the Mary and Jackson Burke Collection. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

See full bibliography

;
Jenkins 1993, pp. 170–71, no. III-3
Jenkins, Donald
1993
[Editor]. The Floating World Revisited. Exh. cat. Portland, Ore.: Portland Art Museum.

See full bibliography

;
Murase 2000, no. 150.
Murase, Miyeko
2000
Bridge of Dreams: The Mary Griggs Burke Collection of Japanese Art. Exh. cat. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

See full bibliography

See also

This artwork was published as catalogue entry 276 in Volume I of Art through a Lifetime.

Additional details

D276-1
D276-1
D276-2

Signature

Painted by Unchō in the eleventh month of 1796

Seal

kaō

Text

by Santō Kyōden (1761–1816)

Anyone can break off the branch of a willow by the roadside or pick a flower from a fence. / Even Saigyō has not yet seen Yoshiwara in the season of flowers.

Signature

Inscribed by Santō Kyōden

Seal

“Deer Fence,” poem by Wang Wei (ca. 701–761)

Empty mountains, no one in sight. / [I] hear only the sound of someone talking. / Setting sunlight enters the deep woods, / shining again over the green moss.

Text

by Takizawa Bakin (1767–1848)

The house of Yoshiwara is north of Kinryūzan; / the courtesan thinks often of Thousand-Armed Kannon. / She lies on three layers of quilts and touches the bodies of ten thousand men. / Yet lice never cling to the collars of her wealthy customers; / such is the disposition of the women of Yoshiwara.

Signature

Playfully inscribed by Kyokutei Bakin

Seal

Bakin