Hell Courtesan (1871–89): Art, History and Details

Hell Courtesan (1871–89) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Kawanabe Kyōsai (Japanese, 1831–1889).

The work and its context

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

Kawanabe Kyōsai repeated this large-scale composition with variations a number of times. In this version, a famous 15th-century courtesan known for wearing a robe with images of the Buddhist hells stands before a folding screen. Legend has it that she was abducted by bandits, and wore the garment to symbolize her belief that her suffering in her current life was punishment for sins committed in a former life. Here, in a parody depiction of the garment, the courtesan stands in for Benzaiten, the goddess of everything that flows, while the remaining members of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune appear on her outer robe. One of them reports sins to Enma, the King of Hell, who is writing out his judgments on the recently deceased.

Object facts

• Title: Hell Courtesan
• Date: 1871–89
• Creator attribution: Kawanabe Kyōsai (Japanese, 1831–1889)
• Culture: Japan, Meiji period (1868–1912)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink, color, gold, and silver on silk
• Dimensions: Image: 144.2 x 67.6 cm (56 3/4 x 26 5/8 in.); Overall: 233.7 x 92.1 cm (92 x 36 1/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1985.268

A detail from the museum

The word for longevity appears multiple times in gold and silver on her outer robe.

Collection credit

The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith

Further reading listed by the museum

• Kobayashi, Tadashi 小林忠. Edo Shomin No Kaiga 江戶庶民の絵画 [Painting for the common people in the Edo period]. 1st ed. Tokyo: Gakushu Kenkyusha, 1979.
• Turner, Evan H. “The Year in Review for 1985.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 73, no. 2 (February 1986): 26–71.
• “Checklist of the Kelvin Smith Bequest.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 7 (September 1988): 292–295.

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.