Kuniyoshi 国芳: Beauty compared with Taben Sonja (多辨損者)

Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861)
Title: Beauty compared with Taben Sonja (多辨損者) 
Series: Sixteen Wonderful Considerations of Profit (Myôdensu jûroku rikan, 妙でん老十六利勘)
Date: Ca. 1845

A rakan (or Arhat in Sanskrit) is Buddhist ascetic of exceptional qualities and attainment; there were traditionally sixteen of them who were considered the most legendary and worthy of devotion. This series of sixteen numbered prints pairs  beautiful women with rakan in a lightly tongue-in-cheek manner. This is number eight, and we see a mother turn away from her sewing box to nurse her young child, with toys for the child seen on the floor to the left. Each rakan also had an associated symbolic item; here the rakan holds a pair of tongs.

Condition: Very good impression, color and condition.
Dimensions: ôban (37.2 x 25 cm)
Publisher: Enshu-ya Matabei
Literature: Robinson, Kuniyoshi: The Warrior-Prints (1982),series 103. Schaap 11.8.
Seal: kiri
Signature: Ichiyûsai Kuniyoshi ga

SKU: KUY613