Woman Holding up a Piece of Fabric (Nuno o kazasu onna)
- Medium:
- Woodblock print
- Format:
- Oban
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
From around 1790, this print depicts a woman raising a length of cloth above her head — a gesture that combines practical textile examination with an elegant compositional device. The raised fabric stretches the figure upward and allows the billowing cloth to fill the upper portion of the composition with texture and color. Utamaro returned several times to this gesture, which transformed the mundane act of inspecting fabric into a moment of visual poetry.
![A Low Class Prostitute (Gun [teppo]), from the series “Five Shades of Ink in the Northern Quarter" ("Hokkoku goshiki-zumi") by Kitagawa Utamaro](https://www.artic.edu/iiif/2/ed82be98-8a83-4163-ccc4-e2f7210cce55/full/843,/0/default.jpg)
c. 1794/95
Color woodblock print; oban
c. 1793
color woodblock print
Woodblock print
Woodblock print
Curated cross-cuts that include this print.
Woman Holding up a Piece of Fabric (Nuno o kazasu onna) was created by Kitagawa Utamaro (喜多川歌麿).
Woman Holding up a Piece of Fabric (Nuno o kazasu onna) depicts bijin-ga.
