Courtesan (early 1700s): Art, History and Details

Courtesan (early 1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Kaigetsudō Doshin (Japanese, active 1711–1736).

The work and its context

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

Kaigetsudō Doshin was one of five painters in a studio operating under Kaigetsudō Ando (about 1671–1743) in the Asakusa area of Edo (now Tokyo). The workshop specialized in portraits, like this one, of high-ranking courtesans of the Yoshiwara district. Characteristic of those works, this painting features strong ink delineation of the subject’s twisting form and bold patterns in the kimono, as well as the absence of any sort of setting.

Object facts

• Title: Courtesan
• Date: early 1700s
• Creator attribution: Kaigetsudō Doshin (Japanese, active 1711–1736)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll; ink and color on paper
• Dimensions: Painting only: 91.7 x 46 cm (36 1/8 x 18 1/8 in.); Including mounting: 170.2 x 67.3 cm (67 x 26 1/2 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1917.97

Collection credit

Worcester R. Warner Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Vilbar, Sinéad. "The Japanese Art Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1915-1951." In Great Waves & Mountains: Perspectives and Discoveries in Collecting the Arts of Japan. Natsu Oyobe, and Allysa B. Peyton, eds., 160–197. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2022.

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.