Description
Rare original woodblock print made by the artist Utagawa Sadahide (歌川貞秀) in a period between 1830 and 1844. The work portrays the courtesan Ose (大勢) on the terrace of the Kado-Ebiya (角海老屋) house, in the first block of Kyo-machi (京町一丁目) in the Shin Yoshiwara (新吉原) pleasure district. The woman is in the company of one of her two young kamuro (禿) assistants who, as we read in the upper left, were called Namino (なみの) and Chidori (ちどり).
The vertical large oban (大判) format print is the right panel of a triptych produced by the publisher Yamaguchiya Tobei (山口屋藤兵衛), owner of Kinkodo (錦耕堂), and entitled “A Mirror of the Moon in the Evening of the Pleasure District” (月宵好廓鏡).
The refined woodcut on Japanese washi paper (和紙) has a partial trimming of the margins and shows evident signs of aging including some fold marks, as well as small holes and restorations.
