Women Watching a Girl Dance on Shells (From the series Fashionable Presentations of Three Horses) (1784): Art, History and Details

Women Watching a Girl Dance on Shells (From the series Fashionable Presentations of Three Horses) (1784) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Torii Kiyonaga (Japanese, 1752–1815).

The work and its context

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

Dancing plays a significant role in festival celebrations and special occasions. The young girl is dancing on a pair of bivalve shells (also used as game pieces in other amusements), accompanied by the music of the samisen (3-stringed guitar).

Object facts

• Title: Women Watching a Girl Dance on Shells (From the series Fashionable Presentations of Three Horses)
• Date: 1784
• Creator attribution: Torii Kiyonaga (Japanese, 1752–1815)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 36.3 x 24.8 cm (14 5/16 x 9 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1985.330

Collection credit

The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hirano, Chie. Kiyonaga; A Study of His Life and Works, with a Portfolio of Plates in Color and Collotype. Cambridge, Mass: Pub. for the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, by the Harvard University Press, 1939.
• Sotheby's London. Highly Important Japanese Prints, Illustrated Books and Drawings and Paintings, from the Henri Vever Collection: Part III. March 24, 1977.

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.