Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892)
Portrait of a young woman, probably the house maid of a distinguished samurai household. Dressed in an elegant pale purple furisode kimono with a pattern of morning glories (asagao), she peers curiously through the slightly open sudare (summer-doors) of the house.
Title: Mitasô: Tenpô nenkan okoshô no fûzoku (Inquisitive: the appearance of a maid of the Tenpô/Tempô era, 1830-44)
Series: Fûzoku sanjûnisô (Thirty-two Aspects of Customs and Manners)
Signature: Yoshitoshi ga
Seal: Taiso
Publisher: Tsunajima (Tsujiokaya) Kamekichi, Tokyo
Date: Meiji 21 (1888)
Size: Vertical Ôban, 35.2 x 24 cm (overall)
Very good impression in excellent colours, with lustre and relief printing. Three-coloured title cartouche. Slightly trimmed at top, bottom and left. Retains original album backing. Small brown spot at left margin, a few tiny printer's smudges, otherwise very nice condition.
Ill. in John Stevenson, Yoshitoshi's Women, Seattle/London 1995, no. 13 (and detail as frontispiece). Cf. also British Museum 1906,1220,0.1489; NDL DOI 10.11501/1312772; Mizuta Museum of Art 050_13; Edo-Tokyo Museum 90203104.
€ 2.400,-