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Hishikawa Moronobu: First Master of Ukiyo-e

Hishikawa Moronobu's Entertainers in a House of Assignation
Hishikawa Moronobu (1630/31?–1694) Entertainers in a House of Assignation, from the series Aspects of the Yoshiwara (Yoshiwara no tei)
1682–83 Woodcut 25.7 x 38.6 cm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Estate of Samuel Isham, 1914, JP 812

The scene shows entertainers in an ageya, or house of assignation, where ambitious visitors to the Yoshiwara made appointments to meet a top-class courtesan. The screen behind them, inscribed with the large character doku (solitude), reappears in the handscroll, A Visit to the Yoshiwara, where it is placed behind the proprietor as he counts his money.

Photo: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art

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