Two Geishas beside a Candle

Two Geishas beside a Candle is a color woodblock print by Kitagawa Tsukimaro, dating to the early decades of the nineteenth century. The composition depicts two geisha seated together by the light of a single tall candlestand — one of the night-scene subjects that recurs across Tsukimaro's mature bijin-ga and that distinguishes his manner most sharply from that of his teacher Utamaro. The candlelight motif allowed Tsukimaro to explore a deeply intimate visual register: the warm pool of illumination around the candle, the deep shadow beyond it, the faces of the two women caught in the half-light as they confer or perhaps prepare for an engagement. The two figures are rendered in his characteristic elongated three-quarter manner, their kimono falling in long vertical pleats and the composition tightened around the central light source. The print belongs to the body of after-hours Yoshiwara genre scenes that became Tsukimaro's signature contribution to late-Edo bijin-ga, and exemplifies the intimate, atmospheric quality of his mature post-Utamaro work. The print is held by the Cleveland Museum of Art, bequeathed in 1940 by James Parmelee.