Artwork Page for Love at the Brothel Gate

Details / Information for Love at the Brothel Gate

Love at the Brothel Gate

屋門恋

late 1760s

Suzuki Harunobu 鈴木春信

(Japanese, 1724–1770)
Culture
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
Medium
color woodblock print
Measurements
Sheet: 29 x 21.7 cm (11 7/16 x 8 9/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of J. H. Wade 1921.349
Public Domain
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Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Courtesans were on display to potential clients through bars, an aspect of their jobs that also afforded an opportunity to have socially distanced interactions with fellow entertainment district denizens. Here, a courtesan with a crane motif on her obi sash converses with her lover, a young man carrying a miniature theater. The poem in the cloud above them comes from New Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern (新古今和歌集) and reads,

Although I yearn,
I do not speak as days and months,
pass by behind my cedar gate.
How can I endure keeping this secret within?
A vertically oriented woodblock print depicts three figures near a red wooden building. On the left, a woman with light skin tone looks through a lattice window. Centered, a person with light skin tone in a cream kimono adjusts a green straw hat. To the right, a girl with light skin tone in a striped kimono holds a pole-mounted lantern. Japanese calligraphy lines the top within a cloud-like border.

Love at the Brothel Gate

late 1760s

Suzuki Harunobu

(Japanese, 1724–1770)
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

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