Writing Box with Spitting Courtesan (early to mid-1800s): Art, History and Details

Writing Box with Spitting Courtesan (early to mid-1800s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

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

The design on this writing box shows a courtesan who has just completed an impressive feat of spitting the term shinobukoi (忍恋), which could be translated as “hidden love” or “unrequited love,” on an earthen wall. The phrase appeared in classical Japanese poetry anthologies produced by nobles writing in ink on the finest decorated papers. Here, the confining walls of the brothel district become a space for public announcement in graffiti, with the medium being perhaps tea.

Object facts

• Title: Writing Box with Spitting Courtesan
• Date: early to mid-1800s
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Lacquer
• Technique: Lacquered wood with maki-e (image made of sprinkled gold dust)
• Dimensions: Box: 21.6 x 19.8 x 3.2 cm (8 1/2 x 7 13/16 x 1 1/4 in.); Closed: 21 cm (8 1/4 in.); Cover: 20.7 x 20.7 cm (8 1/8 x 8 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1963.260

Collection credit

Worcester R. Warner Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lee, Sherman E. “Year in Review for 1963.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 50, no. 10 (1963): 263–294.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.

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.