A Courtesan's Day

A courtesan's day in the carefree atmosphere of the famous pleasure quarter the Yoshiwara in Edo (present-day Tokyo) was carefully planned to an hourly schedule. This sequence of 12 and later 24 hours proved a convenient device for Japanese print artists and their publishers when devising sets of prints showing favourite beauties of the day engaged in daily activities. In this second volume of Hotei Publishing's Famous Japanese Prints Series, three sets centred on the theme of the hours of the clock in the pleasure quarters are discussed in detail: - Kitagawa Utamaro's The Twelve Hours of the 'Green Houses' (Seirō jūnitoki, c. 1794) - Tsukioka Yoshitoshi's Twenty-four Hours in Shinbashi and Yanagibashi (Shinryū nijūyoji, 1880-81) - Toyohara Kunichika's Scenes of the Twenty-four Hours, A Prictorial Trope (Mitate chūya nijūyoji, 1890-91) A contextual and visual analysis of these works by the authors provides the reader with an insight into the broader cultural and artistic milieu of the early and later nineteenth century.