Kuniyoshi 国芳: Beauty Enjoying the Horse Day Festival in the Yoshiwara
Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861)
Title: Colorful Stripes of Festival of Horse Day: Inari Shrine Kurosuke (tazuna-zome uma no en’nichi kurosuke inari) たずなぞめ 午の縁日九郎助いなり Date: ca. 1845
A beauty is enjoying her day at a festival (matsuri) held at an Inari Shrine. There are hanging banners behind her, and she holds several toy souvenirs. Her hair is decorated with festive pins, and she has a relaxed smile on her face. This same figure of a beauty seems to have been used in the “Eight Views of Night Visiting” series from 1845, although the background is completely transformed.
The first word of the title, “tazuna-zome”, means stripes of cloth which are dyed in purple, light blue, and red. “Tazuna” meaning reins, “zome/some” to dye. This expression was used for colorful stripes of cloth since they looked like colorful reins.
This is a scene at the Inari Shrine Kurosuke, which was located at the corner of Kyô-machi 2 Chome in the property of Yoshiwara Pleasure Quarter, where the lowest classes of pleasure women were living. Yoshiwara had one Inari Shrine at each of the four corners until 1881, where these people could go and seek help and comfort. The main and biggest festival took place every year on the first Horse Day of the second month (in the lunar calendar), though every Day of the Horse there seemed to be a fair. The most popular of the four was Kurosuke Inari Shrine.
In the center of the composition a beauty stands with combs and toys atop two boxes in her right hand, turning her head towards the right. She wears a rather thick coat, on which character Fuku 福 is written on the black collar. She has small hair pins in her hair. Five colorful advertisements, tazuna-zome are hanging above her on one side and a lantern with a toshidama design on the other side. The scene is accompanied by a senryu poem. The five colorful stripes are: one in dark blue (from left), the second in pale blue says Minato-yaみなとや, the third in red says hanmoto (Publisher) Yasuはんもと安, namely the publisher of this print, the fourth in pale pink says Kiri-hanき里半/桐, the name of tea house owner Kiri-ya Ibei at Naka-machi in Yoshiwara, who was a fan of Kabuki and could mimic Kabuki actors. He organized a spontaneous dramatic performance, niwaka, with a help of Naka-Manji-ya of Kado-machi during the festival. The fifth says Tamano-ya, uta (poem),たまのや うた, probably referring as composer of the senryu poem on this sheet left.
Beautifully printed, with lead grey on her outer robe and blindprinting on her white collar.
Condition: Excellent impression and color; very good condition. Untrimmed and unbacked. Some minor wrinkles and barely-there surface soil.
Dimensions: 37.7 x 25.5 cm
Publisher: Yasu 安(possibly Yasuda Yasugorô 安田安五郎)
Signature: Ichiyusai Kuniyoshi ga
SKU: KUY635
