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Right-Hand Sheet of a Set of Three: The Courtesan Ohatsu of the House called Tenma-ya(Sanpuku tsui migi Tenma-ya Ohatsu)
Right-Hand Sheet of a Set of Three: The Courtesan Ohatsu of the House called Tenma-ya(Sanpuku tsui migi Tenma-ya Ohatsu)
Public domain: Image courtesy of the Worcester Art Museum.

Right-Hand Sheet of a Set of Three: The Courtesan Ohatsu of the House called Tenma-ya(Sanpuku tsui migi Tenma-ya Ohatsu)

Artist (Japanese, about 1697–1758)
Dateabout 1730
Mediumwoodblock print; ink, hand-applied color and brass powder on paper; beni-e, urushi-e
Dimensions33.6 x 15.6 cm (13 1/4 x 6 1/8 in.)
ClassificationsPrints
MarkingsPublisher Mark: Sextagonal cartouche: Hanmoto Motohama-cho Iga-ya (the publisher Iga-ya of Motohama-cho)
Credit LineJohn Chandler Bancroft Collection
Object number1901.329
DescriptionHosoban
Label TextShigenaga was one of the first artists to produce triptychs. It was fashionable to depict the beauties of the four or three seasons or associated with the three great urban centers, Edo, Kyoto and Naniwa (Osaka).The courtesan Ohatsu of the Tenma-ya, an establishment in the Kitanoshinchi district of Osaka is shown standing beside an engawa with an uguisu (bush warbler) in a cage on the ground beside her. Ohatsu was the ill-fated kabuki heroine of the tragedy "Love Suicide at Sonezaki." When she and her lover Tokubei, a clerk at an oil shop, discovered that he had been secretly bethrothed to his employer's niece and that he was about to be married and sent to Edo to cure him of his passion for Ohatsu, the two eloped and then committed suicide in the precincts of the Tenjin Shrine in Osaka. Ohatsu's kimono is deco
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