浮世の花 - Sanders of Oxford

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One of a series of three small portraits of maiko wearing the same furisode kimono, possibly indicating their allegiance to the same okiya [Cat. No.: 44-47]. These extremely young girls would have been in the first or second years of training, their makeup [note the application of a small circle of crimson safflower petal lipstick to the lower lip], attire, and hairstyles all appropriate to maiko at the outset of their careers. 44. Anonymous Photographer Portrait of a Seated Maiko [Maiko no kaojashin] Date [Western]: ca. 1880 Date [Japanese]: ca. Meiji 13 Method: Silver print Dimensions: 5 1/4 x 3 3/4 inches Code: AD28 Price [Framed]: £140 45. Anonymous Photographer Portrait of a Maiko [Maiko no kaojashin] Date [Western]: ca. 1880 Date [Japanese]: ca. Meiji 13 Method: Silver print Dimensions: 5 1/4 x 3 3/4 inches Code: AD26 Price [Framed]: £140 46. Anonymous Photographer Portrait of a Geisha [Geisha no kaojashin] Date [Western]: ca. 1880 Date [Japanese]: ca. Meiji 13 Method: Silver print Dimensions: 5 1/4 x 3 3/4 inches Code: AD35 Price [Framed]: £140 A portrait of a young geisha wearing a formal black five-crested tomesode kimono, patterned with the mon of her oki-ya. 47. Anonymous Photographer Portrait of Two Maiko Studying an Album of Photographs Date [Western]: ca. 1880 Date [Japanese]: ca. Meiji 13 Method: Silver print Dimensions: 5 1/4 x 3 3/4 inches Code: AD29 Price [Framed]: £140 Two senior maiko with ofuku hairstyles. wearing elaborate furisode-style kimono, adopt the established pose of examining a picture book. From the front, the ofuku style resembles the wareshinobu coiffure, worn at a maiko’s debut. At the back, however, the forms diverge, with the kanoko (red spotted silk ribbon, evoking the markings of a young deer) of the wareshinobu, being replaced by a tegarami. [a piece of silk material] The triangular tegarami, is pinned rather than woven to the bottom of the mage [bun]: the final effect being that of a split peach or momoware, the alternative name of the hairstyle. Traditionally, the adoption of the ofuku signified the sexual transition of the maiko, either through the ritualized passage of the mizuage [loss of virginity] or the formal attentions of a patron or danna.
48. Anonymous Photographer Gaicha de Yokohama Date [Western]: ca. 1875-78 Date [Japanese]: Meiji period Method: Hand-tinted albumen print Dimensions: 8 x 5 3/4 inches Condition: Slight, restored tear in lower centre Code: AD33 Price [Framed]: £190 One of two photographs in the exhibition from a nineteenth-century French album [see also, Cat. No. 49, below], this depicts a geisha and a maiko, probably sisters from the same okiya, in a tatami-matted room, re-enacting the preparations for a zashiki [‘a banquet room’; used as a term for an engagement]. The kneeling geisha is assisting her onêsan in tying her heavy obi [sash]. During the Edo period, while the form of the kimono scarcely changed, the obi appeared in a variety of ties and widths, marking trends in fashion and denoting one’s place in both fixed and floating world hierarchies. It appears that the weave evolved as well, shifting in around 1800, from the pliant fabric evident in prints by, for example, Harunobu (ca.1724-1770), to the stiff, elaborate, ‘tapestry’ cloth favoured by Kunisada’s bjin [see, for example, Cat. No.: 1-3]. From this point onwards, it came to dominate a woman’s ensemble, so much so that, as Dalby [1983: p.297] puts it ‘the kimono [became] merely a backdrop for the obi.’ Thus, for the contemporary art historian, the pattern, colour and arrangement of the obi is one of the key iconographical elements used in determining the societal and professional positioning of its wearer. High-ranking yûjo characteristically tied their obi at the front in the style of married women, to visually suggest that they were ‘married’ to their clients for the night. The less salubrious explanation being that having the unwieldy obi front-tied, facilitated expeditious dressing and undressing. 49. Anonymous Photographer Kamisan de Tokio Date [Western]: ca. 1875-78 Date [Japanese]: ca. Meiji 8-11 Method: Albumen print Dimensions: 7 3/4 x 5 1/4 inches Code: AD34 Price [Framed]: £400 An extremely rare portrait study of a Okami-san or mistress of an ochaya [teahouse], wearing a formal black five-crested tomesode. Okami-san were retired geisha who, although still occasionally attending banquets, performing and entertaining clients, presided over the complex administration of the flower and willow world. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the most famous and exclusive hanamachi in Tôkyô were located in Shimbashi and Asakusa. The former, in particular, being a nerve centre for the increasingly influential militarists in the Meiji government ~ their celebrations and parties played out within the teahouses of the quarter. Thus, the ostensibly dowdy and commonplace okamisan depicted in this unusually intimate photograph, would have been privy to, and in some respects orchestrated, some of the most important political gatherings of the age. 50. Anonymous Japanese Photographer A Study of a Maiko in an Garden Date [Western]: ca. 1880s Date [Japanese]: Meiji period Method: Albumen print
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 22 and 23: Method: Nishiki-e woodblock Format:
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 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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