Cleveland Museum of Art

Young Woman Looking at a Pot of Pinks

Date

c. 1767

Medium

color woodblock print, with embossing

Culture

Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

A girl steps onto a veranda after a bath to look at a pot of pinks. A warm breeze stirs the poem-strip tied to the windbell above her. Irises bloom in the pool in the background. The print has been identified as the summer subject in a set of four flowers representing each season and is considered to be one of Harunobu’s most enchanting designs. One of the most celebrated and productive of all ukiyo-e artists, Harunobu is widely recognized as the first Japanese printmaker to create designs by printing each color in the image with a different block. These prints came to be known as nishiki-e, or brocade pictures, suggesting their resemblance to the gorgeous brocades worn at the time. The embossing on the waves in the stream and on the flowers was created by using unpigmented blocks during the printing process.

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