Beauty Receiving a Visitor (late 1600s–early 1700s): Art, History and Details

Beauty Receiving a Visitor (late 1600s–early 1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Tamura Suio (Japanese, active late 1600s–early 1700s).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Here, a person steps out to the engawa, a wood-floored corridor that runs along the outer edge of a house, to greet a visitor as the individual’s companions look on. A strong breeze blows the sleeves of their robes and the translucent blinds enclosing their sitting room. The group’s wealth and high status is signified by the two swords the visitor carries and everyone’s intricately patterned garments. A raised blind lets the viewer peek in to see a black lacquer box decorated with designs in gold powder and a ceramic incense burner on a hexagonal lacquer tray positioned carefully in the room’s display alcove, or toko.

Object facts

• Title: Beauty Receiving a Visitor
• Date: late 1600s–early 1700s
• Creator attribution: Tamura Suio (Japanese, active late 1600s–early 1700s)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 50.4 x 82.2 cm (19 13/16 x 32 3/8 in.); Mounted: 155.2 x 97.7 cm (61 1/8 x 38 7/16 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1985.275

Collection credit

The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kyōto Teishitsu Hakubutsukan, ed. 京都帝室博物館編. Ukiyo-e shūei: Kyōto teishitsu hakubutsukan tokubetsu kanran浮世繪聚英：京都帝室博物館 特別観覧. Kyōto: Kyōto Teishitsu Hakubutsukan 京都:京都帝室博物館, Taishō 大正12 [1923].
• Kokka 國華 vol. 37, no. 435 (1927).
• Okada Saburōsuke 岡田三郎助, Rinpū Sasagawa 笹川臨風, and Yoneame Iizuka 飯塚米雨,. Nihonga taisei 日本畫大成. Vol. 40 Nikuhitsu ukiyoe 肉筆浮世繪. Tōkyō: Tōhō Shoin 東方書院, 1931–34.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.