Kureha of Gakuiseya, from Selection of Beauties from the Pleasure Quarters (1770): Art, History and Details

Kureha of Gakuiseya, from Selection of Beauties from the Pleasure Quarters (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 of a courtesan named Kureha reading a letter comes from a five-volume series of picture books that Suzuki Harunobu designed with images of 166 beautiful courtesans of the Edo (now Tokyo) pleasure district. In intact copies of the fourth volume, of which this is a trimmed page, Kureha is the fifth and final courtesan representing her house, Gakuiseya; the house crest is a roundel formed of pine branches, seen on her outer robe’s sleeve. All poems in the volume are autumnal, and Kureha’s describes white dew on colorful maple leaves.

Object facts

• Title: Kureha of Gakuiseya, from Selection of Beauties from the Pleasure Quarters
• Date: 1770
• Creator attribution: Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1724–1770)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 21.6 x 14.6 cm (8 1/2 x 5 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1921.1282

Collection credit

Gift from J. H. Wade

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.