Ichikawa of the Matsubaya

Like his famous elder Japanese contemporaries, Harunobu and Koryūsai, Kitagawa Utamaro (1750–1806) specialised in <em>bijin-ga</em> compositions depicting beautiful women  – so much so, that he took up residence at the gate of the notorious Yoshiwara (licensed brothel quarters) of Edo.

This rare first-edition print is one several portraits he made of the <em>oiran</em>, or high-ranking <em>yüjo</em> ‘woman of pleasure’ Ichikawa, who worked in the Matsuba house in the Edomachi Itchome district of the Yoshiwara. She is pictured here in the loose, flowing garments and informal front-<em>tyingobi</em> (sash), fashionable with <em>yüjo</em> of the time. She holds a brass pipe in her right hand and sits by a lacquer box of smoking utensils. These are conventional motifs, reflecting activities in the quarters, but the composition makes more subtle and, to pun, coy allusions. The <em>koi</em> (carp) leaping upwards through a waterfall on her gorgeous <em>uchikake</em> (over-kimono) was associated with perseverance, and with love. The first quality is suggested in Ichikawa’s tired, poignant pose and expression, reflecting her resignation to the harsh indenture of the quarters. The latter reference is more ironic, as there was little true love to be found in brothel engagements. The crossed-feather crest, <em>takanoha mon</em>, on her sleeve, usually associated with Asano Takumi-no-kami Naganori (1667–1701; Enya Hangan from the famous kabuki play narrative of the <em>Kanadehon Chūshingura</em> – Treasury of Loyal Retainers), here refers to the Matsubaya brothel. The reniform cartouche at upper left (its shape echoed in the tiny brazier on the smoking kit) provides a further clue to the subject’s identity. Its male figure, dressed in the court fashions of Heian-kyō and looking out over a coastal vista, alludes to her name – Ichikawa means ‘market river’. Ichikawa is the town located directly east of Edo, on the opposite bank of the Edogawa River and looking south over Tokyo Bay, and the cartouche view echoes that seen from the foreshore here even today.

Ichikawa received the name as she rose in status in the Matsubaya. Yoshiwara <em>oiran</em> often received names that drew either from sources in classical literature, court history or verse (the characters and even chapter titles of the 11th-century Genji <em>monogatari, The tale of Genji</em>, provided a rich source of appellations), or from place-names, especially those associated with rivers (<em>kawa</em>, <em>gawa</em>) or mountains (<em>yama</em>).

To emphasise Ichikawa’s sensuous languor, Utamaro has stretched her limbs and torso beyond physiognomical reason. The American poet and collector Arthur Davison Ficke saw Utamaro’s unique construction of a ‘feminine type’ as evidence of a new period of decadence in the fortunes of <em>ukiyo-e</em>: ‘Her strange and languid beauty, the drooping lines of her robes, her unnatural slenderness and willowiness, are emanations of Utamaro’s feverish mind’. Ficke was perceptive – Utamaro’s mature compositions captured the poignant nuances of resignation to fate that inevitably informed the emotional states of the women of the <em>Yoshiwara yūkaku</em>: <em>yū</em>, play, plus <em>kaku</em>, enclosure, referred explicitly to the prison-like world of the walled Yoshiwara compound, and to the harsh conditions and brevity of youthful beauty of the women who lived and worked there. Final word will go to Curator Historical International Art Dr Mark Stocker who says: "I know it's Eurocentric, but look at this print and eat your heart out, Aubrey Beardsley!"

Source: David Bell, 'Floating world at Te Papa: the Heriot collection', <em>Tuhinga</em>, 30 (2019), pp. 56-81.

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art    May 2019