浮世の花 - Sanders of Oxford

Dimensions: 15 x 10 inches
Code: SOX
Price [Mounted]: £200
This relatively rare erotic bijin-ga is one of a twelve-print soroimono matching oiran to the
different signs of the zodiac and, by extension, to the months of the year. Here, representing
the sign of the dog or inu, a courtesan is shown tying her koshimaki [lit. ‘hip wrap’ or ‘waist
roll’]. In early modern Japan, women did not wear underclothing: the tight lines of the
kosode being ruined by superfluous material. Comprising a two-yard length of thin silk, the
koshimaki constituted the most intimate layer of clothing and was simply wrapped around
the waist.
23. Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III) (1786-1864)
The Meandering Stream Party [Kyokusui no en or Kyokusui-no-Utage]
Date [Western]: 1852
Date [Japanese]: Sixth Month of Kaei 5
Signature: Toyokuni-ga
Zodiacal Date Seal: ne roku/rat 6
Nanushi Censor Seals: Murata [Murata Heiemon] & Muramatsu [Muramatsu
Genroku]
Publisher’s Seal: Mori-ji
School: Utagawa
Method: Nishiki-e woodblock print
Format: Ôban tate-e triptych
Condition: Good, some wear at corners
Dimensions: Each sheet 15 x 10 inches
Code: SOX
Price [Framed]: £500
A mitate or parody of rantei kyokusui [Chinese: Lanting qushui] or ‘meandering stream and
orchid pavilion’, a iconographical theme which referred to a gathering held in 353 by the
famous Eastern Jin calligrapher Wang Xishi (Japanese: Ou Gishi [321-79]) at the Orchid
Pavilion (Japanese: Rantei) in Guiji, Zhejiang. In order to celebrate the annual ‘Spring
Purification Festival’ (held on the Third Day of the Third Month), Wang Xishi invited fortyone
scholar-poets to engage in poetry and drinking while seated along the bank of a winding
rivulet. As an elegant conceit, he arranged for servants to float cups of wine down the
stream, and those guests who had not yet written a poem before a cup had passed by were
required to imbibe a penalty cup. The next day, Wang assembled the surprisingly competent
poems of his inebriated friends and wrote his famous Lanting jixu (Japanese: Rantei Shûjo)
or ‘Preface to the Orchid Pavilion Compilation’, a melancholy discourse on the meaning of
life.
The trope became extremely popular in Chinese painting, and was subsequently equally
revered by the Japanese. According to both the Nihon shoki and archaeological remains, a
meandering stream built of stones was constructed in the southeast corner of the eightcentury
Heijô palace, presumably so that aristocrats could re-enact the ‘meandering stream
party’ (kyokusui-no-en).
Paintings of rantei kyokusui typically feature a number of erudite gentlemen seated beside a
twisting stream. For Sinophile Japanese painters the theme was symbolic of refined scholarly
pleasure and the humour in Kunisada’s work rests heavily on that perceived esoteric
aestheticism.
The triptych wittily and somewhat irreverently depicts one such re-enactment with a group
of fashionable 1850s bijin (beautiful women) and an exquisitely dressed samurai carrying a
pipe (probably a pictorial nod towards Prince Genji, although the text does not make this
association explicit); the jovial vulgarity of the servants wading in the water possibly
offering an indication of Kunisada’s opinion of the pretentiousness of such gatherings.