The Shika Teahouse (early 1790s): Art, History and Details

The Shika Teahouse (early 1790s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Utagawa Toyokuni (Japanese, 1769–1825).

The work and its context

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

Exotic birds and tobacco—Western imports—feature in this composition. Peacocks and parrots were brought to Japan by Dutch traders in the 1700s. Many of the visitors to this teahouse, which specialized in displays of foreign birds, admire the unusual fowl while sipping tea and smoking long pipes. The birds have attracted curious courtesans, entertainers, samurai, merchants and their wives, and even a Buddhist monk.

Object facts

• Title: The Shika Teahouse
• Date: early 1790s
• Creator attribution: Utagawa Toyokuni (Japanese, 1769–1825)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: Triptych of color woodblock prints
• Dimensions: Each: 39.2 x 26.4 cm (15 7/16 x 10 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1916.1113

Collection credit

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. 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.