遊女藻塩読書図|The Courtesan Moshio Reading a Book

Unidentified

mid-17th century · Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk · Asian Art

This young woman, her hair twisted up into a modified “palace-style” looped chignon (gosho-fū), lies in a pensive pose with her head propped on one hand. By the light of a single lamp, she reads a book that is open on the floor before her. The poem, inscribed in kana using the scattered-writing (chirashi-gaki) mode, is signed Moshio—a courtesan in the Shimabara pleasure quarters in Kyoto. The waka inscribed here is playfully adapted from a verse by the poet-scholar-calligrapher Fujiwara no Teika (1162–1241). It reads: ぬしやたれ みぬよの色を うつしおく ふでのすさびに かよふ おもかげ もしをほ Who are you, my lady? Sketched with playful brush your visage as you come and go resembles someone I once knew from that unseen world of amorous love. —[signed] Moshio —Trans. John T. Carpenter

Artist

Unidentified

Date

mid-17th century

Medium

Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk

Culture

Japan

Department

Asian Art

Credit line

Mary and Cheney Cowles Collection, Gift of Mary and Cheney Cowles, in celebration of the Museum's 150th Anniversary, 2019