Kiyokawa and Bunshichi, from the series "Elegant Dew of Flowers (Furyu hana no tsuyu)"
風流花の露
- Date:
- c. 1804/30
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
風流花の露
A color woodblock print held by the Art Institute of Chicago (Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Harold G. Henderson) and dated 'c. 1804/30,' catalogued under Kikugawa Eishin (Hidenobu) without the 'attributed to' qualifier that the museum applies to other Eishin sheets. The print belongs to the series 'Elegant Dew of Flowers' (Furyū hana no tsuyu, 風流花の露), a Bunka-era series titled with one of the conventional 'fūryū' (elegant, fashionable) appellations that [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) publishers attached to [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) sets in the early nineteenth century. The named figures are Kiyokawa and Bunshichi — the pairing of a named courtesan with a male companion (here Bunshichi, a name that may refer to a kabuki actor or to a fictional lover from contemporary popular literature) places the print within the lovers-pair iconographic tradition that descended through Suzuki Harunobu, the Utamaro studio, and into the Kikukawa school. The dimensions are approximately 31.8 by 13.1 cm, in the same narrow-vertical format as Eishin's other Henderson-gift sheets. The print preserves the clean color separations characteristic of the Bunka-era Kikukawa palette and is one of the more securely attributed works in Eishin's surviving corpus.
Kiyokawa and Bunshichi, from the series "Elegant Dew of Flowers (Furyu hana no tsuyu)" (風流花の露) was created by Kikugawa Eishin (菊川栄信) in c. 1804/30.
Kiyokawa and Bunshichi, from the series "Elegant Dew of Flowers (Furyu hana no tsuyu)" depicts birds & flowers.
