Tailored Journeys of Couple's Crests
About This Series
Kitagawa Utamaro's "Tailored Journeys of Couple's Crests" (Shitate Edo no awase mon, in the most plausible reading of the title group) is one of the artist's bijin-ga cycles working with the conceit of the mon, the household crest that identified courtesans and patrons within the public spaces of the Yoshiwara. The series is generally placed in the mid-1790s, during the active period of Utamaro's Tsutaya-era collaborations, and uses the comparative mitate format to gather pairs of figures whose family crests are integrated into the design as identifying motifs woven into robes and accessories. The print operates as both a fashion catalogue and a literary game, inviting the viewer to read the crest pairings as indicators of the relationships between named courtesans and their patrons, and to enjoy the play between heraldic identification and the suggestive iconography of bijin-ga. The sheets are issued in oban tate-e format, with the figures drawn in Utamaro's characteristic elongated proportions and the costumes patterned with the seasonal motifs and crests that carry the conceit. The colour is restrained in keeping with his mature palette, and the surface relies on contour and pattern rather than tonal expanse. The crest format had a wide currency in late Edo print culture, extending into kimono pattern books and crest catalogues, and Utamaro's series participates in that broader engagement while retaining the psychological focus of his bijin-ga. Impressions are uncommon and are catalogued among the Utamaro holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum, where the series appears in the standard literature on his mid-1790s production.
Prints in This Series (1)
Frequently Asked Questions
Kitagawa Utamaro's "Tailored Journeys of Couple's Crests" (Shitate Edo no awase mon, in the most plausible reading of the title group) is one of the artist's bijin-ga cycles working with the conceit of the mon, the household crest that identified courtesans and patrons within the public spaces of the Yoshiwara. The series is generally placed in the mid-1790s, during the active period of Utamaro's Tsutaya-era collaborations, and uses the comparative mitate format to gather pairs of figures whose family crests are integrated into the design as identifying motifs woven into robes and accessories. The print operates as both a fashion catalogue and a literary game, inviting the viewer to read the crest pairings as indicators of the relationships between named courtesans and their patrons, and to enjoy the play between heraldic identification and the suggestive iconography of bijin-ga. The sheets are issued in oban tate-e format, with the figures drawn in Utamaro's characteristic elongated proportions and the costumes patterned with the seasonal motifs and crests that carry the conceit. The colour is restrained in keeping with his mature palette, and the surface relies on contour and pattern rather than tonal expanse. The crest format had a wide currency in late Edo print culture, extending into kimono pattern books and crest catalogues, and Utamaro's series participates in that broader engagement while retaining the psychological focus of his bijin-ga. Impressions are uncommon and are catalogued among the Utamaro holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum, where the series appears in the standard literature on his mid-1790s production.
The Tailored Journeys of Couple's Crests series contains 1 prints, created by Kitagawa Utamaro.
The Tailored Journeys of Couple's Crests series was created by Kitagawa Utamaro (喜多川歌麿).
We currently have 1 of 1 known prints from the Tailored Journeys of Couple's Crests series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
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