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Okabe: Enishi of the Owariya, from the series A Tôkaidô Board Game of Courtesans: Fifty-three Pairings in the Yoshiwara (Keisei dôchû sugoroku/Mitate Yoshiwara gojûsan tsui [no uchi])


「契情道中双六 見立よしはら五十三つゐ 岡部 尾張屋内 えにし」
Keisai Eisen (Japanese, 1790–1848)
Publisher: Tsutaya Kichizô (Kôeidô) (Japanese)
Japanese
Edo period
about 1821–23 (Bunsei 4–6)

Medium/Technique Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
Dimensions Vertical ôban; 36.7 x 24.3 cm (14 7/16 x 9 9/16 in.)
Credit Line William Sturgis Bigelow Collection
Accession Number11.25580
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsPrints

Catalogue Raisonné Chiba City Museum of Art, Keisai Eisen (2012), #238 (as Nagato of Owariya); Ôta Museum, Edo engei hana zukushi (2009), #82; another print in the series: Hizô Ukiyo-e taikan 4, Victoria and Albert Museum I (1989), pl. 160
DescriptionMFA impressions: 11.25566 (name in kana, blue kimono), 11.25580 (name in kanji, pink kimono)

The edition illustrated in Chiba 2012 gives the courtesan the name Nagato of the Owariya and has a kimono with a pink ground.
Signed Keisai Eisen ga
渓斎英泉画
Marks Censor's seal: kiwame
改印:極
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.