Bon Festival

An attractive young man steers a beauty down the street, a proprietary arm across her shoulders. The manservant at his side lights the way with a lantern inscribed “Matsuya.” All three wear lightweight, casual robes, for it is a warm night in mid-summer. Inside the structure behind them two objects round out the scene: a papercovered lamp stand and a novelty item, an automaton shaped as a kankodori — a drum with a cockerel perched on top.
The combination of drum and cockerel comes from China, where, it is said, a “drum of admonition” was set up outside the palace gates to enable criticisms of the government. Under wise rulers, the drum was never used, meaning that birds could rest atop it without being startled. In Japan, the word kankodori was sometimes used to evoke a peaceful reign, but because it can be also be written with kanji meaning “cuckoo,” a summer bird, it is linked to that season. Carved kankodori were placed atop floats (dashi) during the great Sannō and Kanda festivals in Edo. These connotations may be among the reasons that it appears here, in a print related to Obon, the summer festival honoring ancestor spirits.
Further wordplay is contained in the poem written in the moonshaped cartouche at the upper right:
Bon no tōro
tsuki wa kumanaku
hanazakari

A lantern for the Bon festival
a moon with no clouds,
and flowers in full bloom!
Written with different characters the word for lantern, tōro, can also mean “visiting a brothel”— an apt double entendre for this scene. The final word, hanazakari, means flowers in full bloom, but also refers to women at the peak of their beauty. Appropriately enough, the courtesan’s obi is patterned with peonies, a wellknown symbol of female beauty and sexual allure.