Two Beauties (late 1700s–early 1800s): Art, History and Details

Two Beauties (late 1700s–early 1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Kitao Shigemasa (Japanese, 1739–1819).

The work and its context

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

Shigemasa favored using colors in broad opaque masses, as seen here in the beauties’ robes. He was a painter, printmaker, and poet, specializing in courtesan and actor prints. The format of this hanging scroll or "pillar painting" allows for the work to be hung on a pillar in a Japanese home.

Object facts

• Title: Two Beauties
• Date: late 1700s–early 1800s
• Creator attribution: Kitao Shigemasa (Japanese, 1739–1819)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: hanging scroll, pillar painting: ink and color on silk
• Dimensions: Painting only: 104.8 x 15.5 cm (41 1/4 x 6 1/8 in.); Including mounting: 175.3 x 32.7 cm (69 x 12 7/8 in.)
• Collection: ASIAN - Hanging scroll
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1985.274

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.