Three Courtesans with a Client (early 1700s): Art, History and Details

Three Courtesans with a Client (early 1700s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Okumura Masanobu (Japanese, 1686–1764).

The work and its context

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

This double-page book illustration is called a sumizuri (meaning to print with sumi ink on paper). It may be an adaptation of a picture book by Kiyonobu I titled Keisei ehon, or Illustrated Book of Courtesans, portraying the most glamorous people in the ukiyo-e world. Masanobu had the greatest influence on the development of the ukiyo-e style during the first half of the 1700s. A publisher, print designer, and painter, he initiated new genres of prints such as the "perspective picture" (uki-e).

Object facts

• Title: Three Courtesans with a Client
• Date: early 1700s
• Creator attribution: Okumura Masanobu (Japanese, 1686–1764)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 26.5 x 37.7 cm (10 7/16 x 14 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1985.337

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.

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.