Courtesan Dreaming of her Childhood (c. 1770): Art, History and Details

Courtesan Dreaming of her Childhood (c. 1770) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1724–1770).

The work and its context

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

This print depicts a courtesan dreaming about the time she was taken from her family to become a courtesan. The man leading the girl by the hand is probably escorting her to the Yoshiwara, the entertainment district in Edo. This format is called a pillar print, or hashira-e (literally, "pillar picture"). It is made by pasting two sheets together vertically to form a long, narrow picture, often hung as a decoration on the narrow support posts of the interior of Japanese houses.

Object facts

• Title: Courtesan Dreaming of her Childhood
• Date: c. 1770
• Creator attribution: Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1724–1770)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: Woodblock print; ink and color on paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 68 x 12.8 cm (26 3/4 x 5 1/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1920.516

A detail from the museum

Pillar prints, or hashira-e (柱絵), are long and narrow Japanese woodblock prints originally intended to decorate wooden pillars.

Collection credit

Gift of J. H. Wade

Further reading listed by the museum

• "Accessions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 7, no. 7 (July 1920): 109–110.

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.