Pleasure Boat on the Sumida River (1800s): Art, History and Details

Pleasure Boat on the Sumida River (1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Teisai Hokuba (Japanese, 1771–1844).

The work and its context

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

After a major fire in Edo (now Tokyo), the Yoshiwara licensed brothel district was relocated to an area accessed via boat along the Sumida River, giving rise to many compositions depicting travel there. Here, attendants with checkered robes serve refreshment to a client. A figure at the fore of the boat tends to the kitchen. A courtesan at the aft, or rear, surveys the river scene. Acquaintances converse in modest commuter boats, and fishers put in to a tiny island. The boat is near the entrance to the San’ya Canal, where pleasure-seekers would disembark.

Object facts

• Title: Pleasure Boat on the Sumida River
• Date: 1800s
• Creator attribution: Teisai Hokuba (Japanese, 1771–1844)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Overall: 153.3 x 76.2 cm (60 3/8 x 30 in.); Painting only: 40 x 55.3 cm (15 3/4 x 21 3/4 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1985.262

Collection credit

The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith

Further reading listed by the museum

• “Checklist of the Kelvin Smith Bequest.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 7 (September 1988): 292–295.
• Jenkins, Donald. “Paintings of the Floating World.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 75, no. 7 (September 1988): 244–278.

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.