浮世の花 - Sanders of Oxford

Censor Seal: Kiwame [‘approved]
Publisher’s Seal: Eikyudo (also known as Yamamoto-ya Heikichi)
School: Utagawa
Method: Nishiki-e woodblock print
Format: Single sheet ôban tate-e
Condition: Excellent with fine detailing
Dimensions: 15 x 9 3/4 inches
Code: SOX
Price [Framed]: £600
A courtesan surrounded by the aki-no-nanakusa or ‘Seven Plants of Autumn’, the boundary
between her kosode and obi rendered deliberately faint, thus suggesting that she too
represent a seasonal bloom. The plants consisted of hagi [bushclover], susuki [pampas
grass], kikyô [Chinese bellflower], kuzu [arrowroot] ominaeshi [maidenflower], nadeshiko
[pinks or wild carnations] and fujibakama [boneset].
First mentioned collectively in a poem by Yamanoue no Okura (ca. 660-733) from the
eighth-century Man’yôshû [ca. 750], they were often contrasted with the ‘Seven Grasses of
Spring’ or haru-no-nanakusa. According to De Becker [1899: p.226], yûjo of the Yoshiwara
often set out artificial representations of the aki-no-nanakusa in their rooms, the displays
intending to evoke autumnal fields, thus setting a wistful seasonal atmosphere for their
customers.
28. Kikugawa Eizan (1787-1867)
Flirting in the Street of Fabric Shops, Odemmachô Quarter
Date [Western]: ca. 1840s
Date [Japanese]: Tempô era
Signature: Kikugawa Eizen-hitsu
School: Utagawa
Method: Aizuri-e woodblock
Format: Single sheet ôban tate-e
Condition: Good, some fading and slight rubbing on corners
Dimensions: 15 x 10 inches
Code: SOX
Price [Framed]: £480
The fabric sellers’ quarter in Edo was centred on Momendana [‘The Great Post Station’], as
the First Street in the Odenmachô was popularly known. Situated next to the Nihonbashi
[‘The Bridge of Japan’], the departure point for journeys along the Tôkaidô and the hub of
mercantile Edo, Momendana had been associated with textiles from the Genroku period. By
Eisen’s day, First Street boasted around fifty wholesale stores, stretching in an unbroken line
on either side of the road, each business identifiable only by curtains [noren] emblazoned
with the trader’s name.
In Eisen’s print, possibly once part of a triptych, a cross-section of Shitamachi [‘Low City’]
life bustles along the Momendana: a townswoman selects rolls of material from an eager
salesman, a beauty dressed in a seasonal iris-patterned kosode (indicating the Fifth Month),
flanked by her maids, flirts with a handsome samurai, holding a fan picked up at the latest
kabuki performance, and, surveying the scene, a wealthy merchant’s wife is transported in a
kago [palanquin] by half-stripped bearers, sweating in the summer heat. As one proverb had
it: 'The person who rides in the kago, the men who bear it; pain in the lower back, pain in the
shoulders.'
The distinctive aizuri technique, which entailed repeated printings in multiple shadings of
blue, was devised in 1842 to circumvent the draconian governmental sumptuary reforms.
Aside from banning the colourful nishiki-e or ‘brocade’ prints, they also forbad the portrayal
of yûjo, geisha and other demimondaines, which explains Eisen’s choice of a quotidian street
scene ~ the beauty and iki of the women merely hinting at the models’ nightime occupations.