About this video
Curator Laura Allen looks at an early Edo print of a high-ranking courtesan teasing a cat. Clues such as her front-tied sash, her pose and the shop name and monkey emblem on the box suggest who she is and who may have paid for the print, and the print's large format and coloring show how early prints were made and sold.
You'll be able to
- use visual clues to identify the courtesan's status.
- explain why a shop might have paid for a print's design.
- describe how early prints were mostly monochrome and could be hand-colored.
Key words
- courtesan
- A high-ranking entertainer of the pleasure quarter, famous like a celebrity.
- emblem
- A symbol that stands for a business or group, like a logo.
- monochrome
- In one color only; here, black outlines on paper.
- hanging scroll
- A painting mounted to hang on a wall, more expensive than a print.
Transcript
the print shows one of the high-ranking courtesans the famous celebrities of the pleasure quarter she's sitting on a box and she is dangling a hand towel over the head of a small cat teasing it the sash tied at the front of her robe confirms her status as a courtesan curator Laura Allen her pose is kind of provocative she has her knees slightly spread apart that's not a genteel pose the Box on which his sitting is labeled with the name of business located in the city of Edo it was a confectionery shop in Lhasa do you and you can also see behind her legs the image of a monkey a Japanese macaque in Japanese masado that's the shops emblem so it's possible that the owner of the shop paid for the
design of this print as a way of promoting its fortunes this print is an example of a large format that was used in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries perhaps to mimic the look of a more expensive hanging scroll it comes from the early phase of printmaking when most of the prints were just monochrome black outlines on paper one of the other two known remaining copies of this print is hand-colored suggesting that was an option for owners either to order or to execute themselves you
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