The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of May 13, 2024

Love at the Brothel Gate

Love at the Brothel Gate

late 1760s
(Japanese, 1724–1770)
Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
color woodblock print
Sheet: 29 x 21.7 cm (11 7/16 x 8 9/16 in.)
Gift of J. H. Wade 1921.349
Location: not on view

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?
  • Duret
    before 1921
    Unknown private collection, Paris, France
    January 21, 1921
    (Walpole Galleries, New York, NY, January 21, 1921 sale, lot 243)
    1921
    (Yamanaka & Co., sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
    1921–
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Japan's Floating World (Japanese art rotation) 235. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (April 8-October 9, 2022).
    Japanese Woodblock Prints: Themes and Techniques. The Cleveland Museum of Art Education Department, Cleveland, OH (1980).
  • {{cite web|title=Love at the Brothel Gate|url=false|author=Suzuki Harunobu|year=late 1760s|access-date=13 May 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1921.349