浮世の花 - Sanders of Oxford

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Method: Nishiki-e woodblock Format: Ôban tate-e triptych Condition: Excellent with especially fine colour and detailing Dimensions: Each sheet 15 x 10 inches Code: SOX Price [Framed]: £1, 650 This important and rare work offers a further reinterpretation of Chapter 20 of Genji monogatari, with the erection of a snow frog [yuki-kaeru] being substituted for the yukiusagi. Genji, surrounded by courtiers, points his kiseru [pipe] at the group energetically putting the finishing touches to the sculpture. Again, the moment is that of the placement of the final eye, the ritualised awakening and ensouling of the image. In Japanese the word for "frog" and the verb for "to return" are pronounced the same way [kaeru], and, in the floating world, it became customary for a geisha or courtesan to fold and pin up an origami frog after entertaining a favourite patron, in the hope that he would return. A further semantic layer is offered by the Zen notion that the characteristic squatting position of the frog was reminiscent of a monk’s meditation or zazen position; the Rinzai Zen master Sengai Gibbon (1750-1837), for example, executing numerous sumi-e sketches on that theme. Thus, as with most ukiyo-e, all is not quite as it seems ~ the playful snow frog actually being positioned in the apposite pose for the achievement of satori or enlightenment: the awareness of the transience of all things, a constant of both Genji and ukiyo culture, being conflated with the asobi [play] of Genji and companions in the snow. As one of Genji’s waka from Chapter 20 expresses, in the midst of pleasure, the sadness of this world of fragile appearances, the old sense of ukiyo, can suddenly intrude. Admiring the beauty of Murasaki against the backdrop of the snowy garden, his thoughts are interrupted by the call of a waterfowl: ‘A night of drifting snow and memories/Is broken by another note of sadness.’ 11. Utagawa Kunisada II (1823-1880) The Shin Yoshiwara Pleasure Quarter Date [Western]: 1861 Date [Japanese]: First Month of Man-en 2 Signature: Kunisada-ga Censor/Zodiacal Date Seal: Combined aratame [‘examined’] and date seal [tori ichi/ cock 1] Publisher’s Seal: Chôkichiban [rare] School: Utagawa Method: Nishiki-e woodblock print Format: Ôban tate-e triptych Dimensions: Each sheet 14 x 9 1/2 inches Condition: Good Code: SOX Price [Framed]: £850 The Shin Yoshiwara [‘New Yoshiwara’] pleasure quarter represented the nexus of the floating world. It was named for the marshy reed plains near Nihonbashi where it was originally established, by Shouji Jin'emon (1576-1644), at the beginning of the seventeenth century, the only bakufu sanctioned prostitution zone in Edo. Almost immediately, however, the first kanji ‘reed’, was replaced by that for ‘happiness’, which shares the same reading; transfiguring the meaning to the more appropriate and appealing ‘Plain of Happiness’. In 1657, a terrible fire swept through the enclosed district, and the quarter was moved to a new site by the Nihon-zutzumi dyke in the Asakusa district, thus adding the prefix Shin or ‘New’ to the name. After its relocation, the quarter began to flourish; its initial five-street layout expanding to seven to accommodate the growing population, which, in its heyday in the early eighteenth century, numbered over 3000 courtesans and kamuro. In addition to the women, a daily carnival of brothel owners, shopkeepers, geisha, cooks, servants, attendants,
entertainers, musicians and ‘adventurers and intermediaries of every kind and description’ plied the wards for trade [Turk, 1966: p.135]. Despite the otherworldly isolation of the quarter and the emphasis on a client’s monetary assets rather than his rank, the Yoshiwara nevertheless developed an elaborate system of precedence and etiquette as bewildering and stifling as that which dictated the ‘fixed’ world outside. This, together with the spiralling costs of hiring a high-class tayû or kôshi, led to the emergence of numerous okabasho or unlicensed, illegal pleasure districts where the average townsman could afford a more quotidian and unadorned form of prostitution. Indeed, by the end of the eighteenth century, the highest ranks of courtesan occupied such a super-elevated and financially unobtainable position that the grading system had to be changed ~ the lower yobidashi and chûsan classes moving to the top. [Clark, 1992: p.15]. As grand courtesans, they occupied houses known as ômagaki after the distinctive lattice windows at the entrance. Higher graded women were not expected to display themselves to attract clients, however, instead elegantly processing, retinue of kamuro in matching kimono trailing behind them, to an ochaya [‘teahouse’] to meet the prosperous customer who had ceremonially summoned them. Just such a procession can be seen in the right-hand sheet of Kunisada II’s triptych, which depicts nine of the most famous courtesans in the Shin Yoshiwara; the decorative cartouche containing their mon or device, name and a short poetic encomium. The pyramidal arrangement of buckets [in the centre sheet] was a safeguard against the everpresent danger of fires, so common they were known as ‘Flowers of Edo’. 12. Utagawa Kunisada II (1823-1880) A Collection of Ôiran inside the Shin Yoshiwara Pleasure Quarters Date [Western]: 1861 Date [Japanese]: First Month of Man-en 2 Signature: Kunisada-ga Censor/Zodiacal Date Seal: Combined aratame [‘examined’] and date seal [tori ichi/ cock 1] Publisher’s Seal: Chôkichiban [rare] School: Utagawa Format: Ôban tate-e triptych Method: Nishiki-e woodblock print Condition: Good Dimensions: Each sheet 14 x 9 1/2 inches Code: SOX Price [Framed]: £850 From the same series as the above triptych, the viewer’s perspective has now shifted to inside the Yoshiwara. Similarly acting as an idealistic advertisement for the exquisite and cultivated women on offer, the work depicts a further set of nine courtesans, with their kamuro, languidly engaged in whiling away the time before their next assignations. In these types of unproblematic depictions, little was evoked, however, of the seamier and more pitiful side of the floating world. For the large numbers of often pre-pubescent peasant girls sold into prostitution by their impoverished families, the best they could hope for was to become apprenticed as attendants to one of the more successful and high-ranking women. In an almost identical pattern to geisha, they were trained for a number of years in etiquette and the fine arts, finally making their debut as shinzô (the equivalent to maiko), apprentice courtesans, in their later teens. Thereafter, the aim was to progress through the hierarchy as rapidly as possible, moving from heya-mochi (having their own room) and zashiki-mochi (having their own suite) to becoming a full courtesan with servants of their own. After the standard decade of indenture, however, the options became rather limited for most women, however beautiful or talented. Possibly the happiest outcome of one’s Yoshiwara career would be societal and financial redemption by a kind patron, either by becoming his mistress or by running a business backed by his gold. All too many former inmates, however, ended their careers in the less
Page 2: TERMS AND CONDITIONS All items in t
Page 6: The earliest known authenticated im
Page 17: Dimensions: Each sheet 14 x 9 inche
Page 20 and 21: Method: Nishiki-e woodblock print F
Page 27: Publisher’s Seal: Sadaoka School:
Page 30: Notable paintings of the theme incl
Page 33 and 34: 29. Keisai Eisen (1790-1848) A Cour
Page 35: one, another dramatically describes
Page 43 and 44: 48. Anonymous Photographer Gaicha d
Page 45 and 46: photographs taken at the same time
Page 47: 56. Kusakabe Kimbei (1841-1934) A R
Page 50 and 51: okiya: A geisha house oiran: Litera

浮世の花 - Sanders of Oxford

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