Customary Japanese Female Ettiquette
About This Series
Toyohara Chikanobu's Customary Japanese Female Etiquette (Nihon fujin no shitsuke gusa, in a plausible reading of the title group) belongs to the late-Meiji didactic bijin-ga production through which the artist applied his sustained backward look at Tokugawa-era feminine culture to the rapidly modernizing decade of the 1890s. The series, generally placed in the 1890s and issued by Matsuki Heikichi or one of the publishers in his circle, presents women engaged in the protocols of formal etiquette: tea preparation, the seating arrangements of the reception room, the offering and acceptance of gifts, the conduct proper to seasonal observances, and the ritual gestures of greeting and parting that codified the daily practice of polite society. The conceit aligned with the wider Meiji enterprise of preserving and codifying older lifeways for an audience whose social practice was being rapidly remade by Western contact and by the new urban culture of post-Restoration Tokyo, and the print accordingly operates as both fashion plate and instructional manual. Chikanobu's draftsmanship registers each pose and gesture with the documentary precision that characterizes his mature work, drawing his figures in the elegant elongated proportions established for late-Meiji bijin-ga and pairing them with carefully observed interior settings whose architectural and decorative detail signals the formal occasion. The sheets are issued in oban tate-e format with the production values typical of the deluxe Matsuki Heikichi print, employing fine textile patterning and graduated color, and each carries a cartouche identifying the etiquette depicted. The series belongs alongside Chikanobu's other backward-looking bijin cycles of the 1890s and registers the same nostalgic impulse that animates his Tokugawa-court projects. Impressions are catalogued among the Chikanobu holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum.
Prints in This Series (1)
Frequently Asked Questions
Toyohara Chikanobu's Customary Japanese Female Etiquette (Nihon fujin no shitsuke gusa, in a plausible reading of the title group) belongs to the late-Meiji didactic bijin-ga production through which the artist applied his sustained backward look at Tokugawa-era feminine culture to the rapidly modernizing decade of the 1890s. The series, generally placed in the 1890s and issued by Matsuki Heikichi or one of the publishers in his circle, presents women engaged in the protocols of formal etiquette: tea preparation, the seating arrangements of the reception room, the offering and acceptance of gifts, the conduct proper to seasonal observances, and the ritual gestures of greeting and parting that codified the daily practice of polite society. The conceit aligned with the wider Meiji enterprise of preserving and codifying older lifeways for an audience whose social practice was being rapidly remade by Western contact and by the new urban culture of post-Restoration Tokyo, and the print accordingly operates as both fashion plate and instructional manual. Chikanobu's draftsmanship registers each pose and gesture with the documentary precision that characterizes his mature work, drawing his figures in the elegant elongated proportions established for late-Meiji bijin-ga and pairing them with carefully observed interior settings whose architectural and decorative detail signals the formal occasion. The sheets are issued in oban tate-e format with the production values typical of the deluxe Matsuki Heikichi print, employing fine textile patterning and graduated color, and each carries a cartouche identifying the etiquette depicted. The series belongs alongside Chikanobu's other backward-looking bijin cycles of the 1890s and registers the same nostalgic impulse that animates his Tokugawa-court projects. Impressions are catalogued among the Chikanobu holdings of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, and the Tokyo National Museum.
The Customary Japanese Female Ettiquette series contains 1 prints, created by Toyohara Chikanobu.
The Customary Japanese Female Ettiquette series was created by Toyohara Chikanobu (豊原周延).
We currently have 1 of 1 known prints from the Customary Japanese Female Ettiquette series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
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