The Appearance of Upper-Class Women of the Edo period
About This Series
Toyohara Chikanobu's The Appearance of Upper-Class Women of the Edo Period (Jidai kagami, frequently glossed in modern catalogues as Mirror of the Eras) is the artist's most ambitious bijin-ga undertaking, a long retrospective survey of the costume and conduct of court and samurai-class women across the Edo period. The series was published by Matsuki Heikichi (Daikokuya) and ran in installments from around 1896 into the early years of the twentieth century, eventually comprising some fifty oban tate-e sheets that move chronologically through the successive shogunates from the Kanei era of the early seventeenth century to the late Tokugawa period. Each sheet identifies its date by a cartouche giving the era name (nengo) and depicts a woman of high rank in the costume, hairstyle, and accessories proper to her period and station, drawn with the documentary precision that characterizes Chikanobu's late nostalgic-historical production. The artist had begun his career as a Tokugawa retainer who fought on the losing side of the Boshin War of 1868-1869, and his post-Restoration print practice came to be defined by a sustained backward look at the courtly and samurai culture displaced by the new Meiji order, a register that distinguished him from contemporaries whose work celebrated the new modernity. Jidai kagami operates simultaneously as a documentary archive of pre-Meiji feminine costume, an act of cultural memorialization for an audience increasingly removed from Tokugawa lifeways, and a deluxe production showcasing the technical resources of the late-Meiji woodblock, employing fine textile patterning, graduated color, and metallic pigments. Impressions are preserved in substantial holdings at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Honolulu Museum of Art, where the series figures as one of the central documents of Chikanobu's mature output.
Prints in This Series (2)
Frequently Asked Questions
Toyohara Chikanobu's The Appearance of Upper-Class Women of the Edo Period (Jidai kagami, frequently glossed in modern catalogues as Mirror of the Eras) is the artist's most ambitious bijin-ga undertaking, a long retrospective survey of the costume and conduct of court and samurai-class women across the Edo period. The series was published by Matsuki Heikichi (Daikokuya) and ran in installments from around 1896 into the early years of the twentieth century, eventually comprising some fifty oban tate-e sheets that move chronologically through the successive shogunates from the Kanei era of the early seventeenth century to the late Tokugawa period. Each sheet identifies its date by a cartouche giving the era name (nengo) and depicts a woman of high rank in the costume, hairstyle, and accessories proper to her period and station, drawn with the documentary precision that characterizes Chikanobu's late nostalgic-historical production. The artist had begun his career as a Tokugawa retainer who fought on the losing side of the Boshin War of 1868-1869, and his post-Restoration print practice came to be defined by a sustained backward look at the courtly and samurai culture displaced by the new Meiji order, a register that distinguished him from contemporaries whose work celebrated the new modernity. Jidai kagami operates simultaneously as a documentary archive of pre-Meiji feminine costume, an act of cultural memorialization for an audience increasingly removed from Tokugawa lifeways, and a deluxe production showcasing the technical resources of the late-Meiji woodblock, employing fine textile patterning, graduated color, and metallic pigments. Impressions are preserved in substantial holdings at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the British Museum, the Tokyo National Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Honolulu Museum of Art, where the series figures as one of the central documents of Chikanobu's mature output.
The The Appearance of Upper-Class Women of the Edo period series contains 1 prints, created by Toyohara Chikanobu.
The The Appearance of Upper-Class Women of the Edo period series was created by Toyohara Chikanobu (豊原周延).
We currently have 2 of 1 known prints from the The Appearance of Upper-Class Women of the Edo period series indexed in our collection. Browse them all on this page.
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