Love at the Brothel Gate (late 1760s): Art, History and Details

Love at the Brothel Gate (late 1760s) 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:

Courtesans were on display to potential clients through bars, an aspect of their jobs that also afforded an opportunity to have socially distanced interactions with fellow entertainment district denizens. Here, a courtesan with a crane motif on her obi sash converses with her lover, a young man carrying a miniature theater. The poem in the cloud above them comes from New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (新古今和歌集) and reads, Although I yearn, I do not speak as days and months, pass by behind my cedar gate. How can I endure keeping this secret within?

Object facts

• Title: Love at the Brothel Gate
• Date: late 1760s
• Creator attribution: Suzuki Harunobu (Japanese, 1724–1770)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 29 x 21.7 cm (11 7/16 x 8 9/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1921.349

Collection credit

Gift of 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.