Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞) / Toyokuni III (三代豊国) (artist 1786 – 01/12/1865)
Number 12 - The Syllable Wo (ヲ): Nanasato (七里) of the Sugata-Ebiya from the series ABC Poems for Beautiful Courtesans (Bijin keisei iroha tanka: 美人傾城いろはたん歌)
ca 1822
color woodblock
Signed: Okonomi ni tsuki (out of my own taste) Kunisada ga
御好ニ付国貞画
Publisher: Yamaguchiya Tōbei
(Marks 591 - seal 15-005)
Censor's seal: kiwame
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
Drexel University, Philadelphia
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - The Syllable Ho - Yosooi
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - The Syllable I - Shiratama
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - The Syllable Ni - Somei
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - The Syllable Ro - Tsukasa
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna - The Syllable Ka
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna - The Syllable Ri
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna - The Syllable Ru
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - Eisen print of the courtesan Nanzato
Beaux-arts de Paris Each courtesan in this series based on the Japanese alphabet is accompanied by a poem which starts with the appropriate 'letter'. This one is number 12. Christie's translated the title as 'Alphabet Poems for Beautiful Courtesans'.
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We have been able to locate several other prints from this series. Four are in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and one is in the Mead Art Museum at Amherst. There is also one in the Shizuoka Prefectural Library and another in the Waseda University collection.
In the upper right corner is an ikō (衣桁), a clothes rack, meant not only to keep the courtesans elaborate gown fresh, but also to display it for its ostentatious nature.
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Nansato can also be read as Nanazato as can be seen from one example at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. (See the link to the Eisen above.) However, there are five other examples at the MFA where the name is translated as Nanasato.
Japanese names are a whole different area worth studying. In the West, sons and descendents are often named after an parent or ancestor, but not always. Take for examples the names of the kings of England or France. Generally the next numbered descendent is directly related in a bloodline to the previous king that used that name. Among Catholic popes, their names are chosen today by themselves after they have been selected to serve. Non-royal sons are often referred to as Jr. or the second or whatever number they had gotten up to. Not so in Japan. Often actors in a line are adopted as young trainees and if appropriately qualified are given the name of an earlier master as they move up the line or hierarchy. Not only that they change their names throughout their careers, almost always upward to something more prestigious... but, again, not always. It's a mess and one that is not easily explained.
And what about the names of artists? Hiroshige II was not a blood relative of Hiroshige I, but was his immediate successor. The name of Toyokuni I went to his son-in-law and not the the student who thought he deserved to be called Toyokuni II. In fact, that student, who at the time was known as Kunisada, eventually became known as Toyokuni III.
As for high ranking courtesans, a similar pattern of name succession took place. Careers were often short in duration - only a few years - for the most beautiful, sophisticated and talented woman, and hence their names were often handed on to later successors to that esteemed name. Their youthful trainees in their entourage were also given names that had particular significance. The youngest, the kamuro, was given a name by the house that employed her and those name were most frequently written in kana and in some way indicated their youthfulness. The next higher rank, the shinzō, might either take part of the name of the high ranking courtesan that they assisted or, in some cases, part of the name of someone who sponsored their rise. Therefore, a name like Nanasato would be handed done to a later talented candidate. Usually such names stayed within the a single house of prostitution, but not always. For example, Kitao Masanobu (1761-1816) illustrated an image of 'Nanasato of the Yotsubaya'* in 1784. This woman could not have been the same woman called 'Nanasato of the Sugataebiya' on Kyo Street in the New Yoshiwara in Edo as seen in the Kunisada print from the 1820s in the Lyon Collection.
*Some sources, like the Chazen Museum, refer to the courtesan in the Masanobu illustration as being from the Yotsume house, while others say the name of the house is that of Yotsuba. Perhaps this is only a different way of pronouncing the same name.
beautiful woman picture (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)
Yamaguchiya Tōbei (山口屋藤兵衛) (publisher)