Women laundering at the Jewel River of Chōfu

Title

Women laundering at the Jewel River of Chōfu
Series

The Six Jewel Rivers
Artist/maker

Kubo Shunman (1757 - 1820) (designer)
Associated people

Fushimiya Zenroku (active 1740s - c. 1914) (publisher)
Associated place

Tōkyō (place of creation)

Tōkyō (place of publication)

Japan (River Chōfu) (subject)
Date

c. 1787 - 1788
Material and technique

woodblock, printed with water-based vegetable pigments
Material index

paper
Technique index

colour woodcut
Object type

hexatych print
Dimensions

mount 55.7 x 32.4 cm (height x width)
print 37.4 x 23.7 cm (height x width)
No. of items

1
Credit line

Presented by Mrs E. M. Allan and Mr and Mrs H. N. Spalding from the Herbert H. Jennings Collection, 1952.
Museum location

not on display
Museum department

Eastern Art
Accession no.

EAX.4090.c

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Catalogue text

Kubo shunman was a pupil of Kitao Shigemasa (1739-1820) and produced relaxed and elegant colour prints influenced by Kiyonaga. He was particularly adept at the use of muted colour schemes (benigirai) in the time when the government passed sumptuary regulations during the Tenmei and Kansei periods (1781-1800) forbidding the use of bright colours. 'The six jewel river' is one of the finest works by Shunman. The six rivers are all in different areas of Japan but Shunman’s six rivers from the Mutamagawa series is shown here as a continuous image. The collection of the Ashmolean Museum lacks the fifth image, that of Ogi of Shiga.

This print is of Chōfu no Tamagawa (the Jewel River of Chōfu). A beauty with a male companion and a maid watches a peasant girl wash her linen in the river. In the far background, two women are performing a method of laundering to smooth the fabric by beating it (see [EAX.3954]) and another is drying the garments on the ground. This region was well known for its cotton fabrics.