Two Beauties

Description

Shigemasa favored using colors in broad opaque masses, as seen here in the beauties’ robes. He was a painter, printmaker, and poet, specializing in courtesan and actor prints. The format of this hanging scroll or "pillar painting" allows for the work to be hung on a pillar in a Japanese home.

Provenance

(David Newman, London, UK, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Kelvin Smith); The Kelvin Smith Collection, Cleveland, OH, given by Mrs. Kelvin [Eleanor Armstrong] Smith [1899–1998] to the Cleveland Museum of Art (? before 1977–1985); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1985–)

Two Beauties

Kitao Shigemasa

late 1700s–early 1800s

Accession Number

1985.274

Medium

hanging scroll, pillar painting: ink and color on silk

Dimensions

Painting only: 104.8 x 15.5 cm (41 1/4 x 6 1/8 in.); Including mounting: 175.3 x 32.7 cm (69 x 12 7/8 in.)

Classification

Painting

Museum

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, United States

Credit Line

The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith