Courtesan with Flower Cart, from the series "Famous Flowers in Three Capitals (Santo meisho no hana)"
- Date:
- early 19th century
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; surimono
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
A [surimono](/glossary/surimono) in the Art Institute of Chicago from Shigenobu's series Famous Flowers in Three Capitals (Santo meisho no hana), this design pairs a courtesan with a hanaguruma (flower cart) — the elaborate wheeled flower-arrangement carts that Yoshiwara and other licensed-quarter courtesans pushed in seasonal processions and parades. The 'three capitals' of the series title are Edo, Kyoto, and Osaka, and the sequence as a whole treats famous flower-associated subjects across the three urban centers, with each print folding a city-specific identity into the named beauty and the three-city framework giving the series a panoramic geographic logic of the kind that kyōka-circle publishers favored. The museum's attribution line — 'Yanagawa Shigenobu I (Rinsai)' — preserves the alternate gō (Rinsai) under which Shigenobu sometimes signed his work. As a surimono the print would have carried kyōka in the upper register; the figure of the courtesan with her cart anchors the composition with the long vertical sweep of kimono that surimono designers favored for their narrow vertical formats.
late 1820s
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
19th century
Woodblock print (surimono); ink and color on paper
c. 1823
Color woodblock print; shikishiban, surimono
1822
Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper; vertical ōban
Courtesan with Flower Cart, from the series "Famous Flowers in Three Capitals (Santo meisho no hana)" was created by Yanagawa Shigenobu (柳川重信) in early 19th century.
Courtesan with Flower Cart, from the series "Famous Flowers in Three Capitals (Santo meisho no hana)" depicts birds & flowers.
