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彩色美津朝 きそはしめ
First Costumes of the New Year (Kiso hajime), from the album Saishiki mitsu no asa (Colors of the Triple Dawn)
彩色美津朝 きそはしめ
Torii Kiyonaga (Japanese, 1752–1815)
Japanese
Edo period
1787 (Tenmei 7)
Medium/Technique
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
Dimensions
Horizontal ôban; 25.5 x 38.8 cm (10 1/16 x 15 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
William Sturgis Bigelow Collection
Accession Number11.13955
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsAsia, Prints and Drawings
ClassificationsPrints
New Year celebrations were especially splendid in the Yoshiwara, the famous licensed pleasure quarter on the outskirts of the city of Edo. This illustration from an album of New Year scenes shows courtesans and their child attendants (kamuro) dressed in their gorgeous new finery and parading down the main street of the Yoshiwara, past doorways and verandas flanked by New Year trees. Two of the children carry decorated paddles for a badminton-like game traditionally played by young girls at New Year.
Catalogue Raisonné
The book: MFA, Golden Age (2010), #137; Chiba Museum, Torii Kiyonage (2007), list #26, pl. 228; Kokusho sômokuroku, rev. ed., vol. 3 (1990), p. 642; Hirano, Kiyonaga (1939), book list #136, pl. CXII
DescriptionIntact album: 34.395
Signed
this sheet unsigned; Gakô Torii Kiyonaga on final page
無款 （画工 鳥居清長）
無款 （画工 鳥居清長）
Marks
Collector's seal (unidentified)
ProvenanceBy 1911, purchased by William Sturgis Bigelow (b. 1850 - d. 1926), Boston [see note 1]; 1911, gift of Bigelow to the MFA. (Accession Date: August 3, 1911)
NOTES:
[1] Much of Bigelow's collection of Asian art was formed during his residence in Japan between 1882 and 1889, although he also made acquisitions in Europe and the United States. Bigelow deposited many of these objects at the MFA in 1890 before donating them to the Museum's collection at later dates.
NOTES:
[1] Much of Bigelow's collection of Asian art was formed during his residence in Japan between 1882 and 1889, although he also made acquisitions in Europe and the United States. Bigelow deposited many of these objects at the MFA in 1890 before donating them to the Museum's collection at later dates.