Description
The Taikō and his five wives appear among richly dressed figures across a garden and veranda in Kitagawa Utamaro’s triptych. Bamboo and trees surround the seated company. Published in 1804, the scene recalls Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s cherry-blossom viewing party of 1598, placing remembered political power within an image of leisure and companionship.
The woodblock triptych, made in ink and color on paper, carried consequences beyond its apparently pleasurable subject. Depicting Hideyoshi defied restrictions on such historical themes, and Utamaro was imprisoned and confined in hand chains. That context gives the gathering an additional significance without replacing its visual appeal. The scene joins recreation, historical memory and the pressures of censorship, making its outward pleasures part of a work whose publication was itself an act of risk.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Kitagawa Utamaro collection.
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