TAKEMARO (Utamaro School).Early nineteenth centuryBijin-ga. Four very elegant girls walking in the foreground carry a roll of precious fabric. Edo periodWoodcut with soft colors, 378x254 mm. At the bottom, in the center, a circular aratame seal and a separate oval zodiacal date seal. Traces of use, some skilled restorations, otherwise good condition.

Further Details

Bijin-ga (美人画, ‘beautiful person picture’) is a generic term for pictures of beautiful women in Japanese art, especially in woodblock printing of the ukiyo-e genre, which predate photography. Nearly all ukiyo-e artists produced bijin-ga, it being one of the central themes of the genre. Takemaro was a pupil of Kitagawa Utamaro, one of the most highly regarded designers of ukiyo-e woodblock prints and paintings, and is best known for his bijin ōkubi-e "large-headed pictures of beautiful women" of the 1790s.