Asia Society
HOME CALENDAR RESOURCES SUPPORT ABOUT VISIT ASIASTORE SEARCH

Katsukawa Shunshō: Luxury Paintings for the Elite

Boat Prostitute at Asazuma
Katsukawa Shunshō (d. 1792)
Boat Prostitute at Asazuma
Late 1770s
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
90.8 x 27.9 cm
Collection of Roger L. Weston

In the medieval period, Asazuma, on the eastern shore of Lake Biwa near Kyoto, was well known for prostitutes who would engage their clients in a boat. Artists in the eighteenth century adapted the subject to that of a traditional type of female entertainer dressed in male attire beneath a willow; this iteration is said to satirize the shogun Tsunayoshi’s habit of playing the hand drum and chanting verse with his concubine in a boat on the lake in Fukiage Park in his castle compound in Edo.

Photo: Robert Lifson