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Wanting to Suckle: Sea Cucumbers from Mikawa, from the series Affectionate Feelings for Mountains and Seas

Wanting to Suckle: Sea Cucumbers from Mikawa, from the series Affectionate Feelings for Mountains and Seas

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Kuniyoshi, Utagawa and Utagawa Yoshitorijo

In at least three series, Kuniyoshi collaborated with his eldest daughter, Yoshitorijo. This series, Affectionate Feelings for Mountains and Seas, was the most elaborate, comprising a total of seventy designs. Kuniyoshi designed the large bust portraits in the foreground and Yoshitorijo designed the inset landscape scenes. Female print designers were very rare in the nineteenth century, but Yoshitorijo and Kuniyoshi’s second daughter Yoshijo are among the best known. Wanting to Suckle is print number fourteen in the series. It includes a scene from Mikawa Province. A small child playfully grasps for the woman’s breast. The beauty is shown with an open mouth that exposes her distinctive blackened teeth, denoting refinement and married status. The collar of her kimono is lavishly printed in a technique called shomenzuri, which produces a shiny surface like the sheen of silk fabric or glossy black lacquer.
Artist
Kuniyoshi, Utagawa and Utagawa Yoshitorijo
(Japanese, 1798-1861) (Japanese, active ca. 1850)
Title
Wanting to Suckle: Sea Cucumbers from Mikawa, from the series Affectionate Feelings for Mountains and Seas
Date
1852
Medium
Color woodcut
Dimensions
370 x 252 mm Overall
Credit
John H. Van Vleck Endowment Fund purchase
Accession No.
2003.15
Classification
Prints
Geography
Japan

Related

  • Mueller, Laura. "Competition and Collaboration: Japanese Prints of the Utagawa School." Leiden, The Netherlands: Hotei Publishing, 2007. p. 167, no. 150

  • Faculty Exhibition 2020: Chazen Museum of Art, 2/1/2020–7/31/2020
  • Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770-1900 : Chazen Museum of Art, 3/21/2008–6/15/2008
  • Competition and Collaboration: Japanese Prints of the Utagawa School: Chazen Museum of Art, 11/3/2007–1/6/2008

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