Viewing Cherry Blossoms at Gotenyama (late 1700s–early 1800s): Art, History and Details

Viewing Cherry Blossoms at Gotenyama (late 1700s–early 1800s) 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:

A scene of cherry blossom viewing at Gotenyama (Palace Hill) in the city of Edo (now Tokyo), features five adults and a child at the top of the hill. At the center of the action, a courtesan lights her pipe from that of a fashionably dressed young man of samurai status, and smoke billows up to the sky.

Object facts

• Title: Viewing Cherry Blossoms at Gotenyama
• Date: late 1700s–early 1800s
• Creator attribution: Utagawa Toyokuni (Japanese, 1769–1825)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk
• Dimensions: Painting: 56.6 x 87.7 cm (22 5/16 x 34 1/2 in.); Mounted: 159.4 x 89.9 cm (62 3/4 x 35 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 2026.46

A detail from the museum

Tobacco was introduced to Japan by Portuguese traders around the 1550s.

Collection credit

The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Ellen and Bruce Mavec

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.