A Courtesan Reading a Book
This young woman, her hair twisted up into a modified “palace-style” looped chignon (gosho-fū), lies in a pensive pose with her head propped on one hand. By the light of a single lamp, she reads a book that is open on the floor before her. The poem, inscribed in kana using the scattered-writing (chirashi-gaki) mode, is signed Moshio—a courtesan in the Shimabara pleasure quarters in Kyoto.
The waka inscribed here is playfully adapted from a verse by the poet-scholar-calligrapher Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241). It reads:
ぬしやたれ みぬよの色を うつしおく
ふでのすさびに かよふ おもかげ もしをほ
Who are you, my lady?
Sketched with playful brush
your visage as you come and go
resembles someone I once knew
from that unseen world of amorous love.
—[signed] Moshio
—Trans. John T. Carpenter
The waka inscribed here is playfully adapted from a verse by the poet-scholar-calligrapher Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241). It reads:
ぬしやたれ みぬよの色を うつしおく
ふでのすさびに かよふ おもかげ もしをほ
Who are you, my lady?
Sketched with playful brush
your visage as you come and go
resembles someone I once knew
from that unseen world of amorous love.
—[signed] Moshio
—Trans. John T. Carpenter
Artwork Details
- 遊女読書図
- Title: A Courtesan Reading a Book
- Artist: Unidentified Artist, ca. 1655–61
- Period: Edo period (1615–1868)
- Date: ca. 1655–61
- Culture: Japan
- Medium: Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
- Dimensions: Image: 25 1/2 × 13 3/8 in. (64.8 × 34 cm)
Overall with mounting: 56 7/8 × 19 13/16 in. (144.5 × 50.4 cm) - Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, in celebration of the Museum's 150th Anniversary, 2019
- Object Number: 2019.420.17
- Curatorial Department: Asian Art
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Unidentified
Unidentified
19th century
Unidentified
16th–17th century
Unidentified
ca. 1820–35
Unidentified
ca. 1895
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