Cleveland Museum of Art

Net Fishing at Night on the Sumida River

Kitagawa Utamaro

Date

c. 1800

Medium

Triptych of color woodblock prints

Culture

Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)

Department

Japanese Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

In this triptych (a composition of three prints), a nighttime drinking party on a pleasure boat is interrupted by an encounter with a fishing boat on the Sumida River in Edo (now Tokyo). A young man in a bold, checked robe distributes lacquer dishes of sake to his female companions, while another man sits on the boat’s roof, peering at the fisherman’s net. The fisherman struggles to control the net as a woman in the party boat offers her sake dish, her robe pulled open at the neck to enjoy the evening cool.

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