Hour of the Tiger [4 am], Courtesan (Tora no koku, keisei), from the series "Customs of Beauties Around the Clock (Fuzoku bijin tokei)"

Hour of the Tiger [4 am], Courtesan (Tora no koku, keisei), from the series Customs of Beauties Around the Clock (Fūzoku bijin tokei), is a color woodblock print of about 1793 by Kitagawa Utamaro in the Art Institute of Chicago. The series is one of his most inventive contributions to Edo bijin-ga, organizing twelve types of women according to the traditional Japanese hours of the day, each associated with a zodiac animal. The hour of the tiger corresponds roughly to the pre-dawn dark, around four in the morning, and Utamaro pairs it with the figure of a courtesan whose night of work in the Yoshiwara is drawing to a close. The print depicts her absorbed in a small private act, perhaps adjusting her hair, attending to a lamp, or pausing in a moment of fatigue, that the viewer recognizes as belonging to the last and quietest stretch of her professional duties. The half-length format brings her face and gestures very close, allowing Utamaro to register the subtle tiredness, intimacy, and dignity of the hour. The series as a whole offers a survey of Edo's female life across the day, from market and household to teahouse and Yoshiwara, presented through his characteristic refined drawing and quiet color sense. The Art Institute of Chicago's impression preserves the design's careful balance between the cosmological scheme of the hours and the very particular emotional texture of one woman's tiger hour in Kitagawa Utamaro's ukiyo-e.