浮世の花 - Sanders of Oxford

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