Description
Kitao Masanobu joins several women in an interior partly divided by a large dark folding screen in Kitagawa Utamaro’s party scene. Its diagonal position introduces a bold shape across the foreground, giving the gathering a sense of depth and enclosure. The named subject, fellow artist Kitao Masanobu, belongs to this social setting rather than appearing as an isolated formal portrait.
Made in the 1790s, this ink-and-color woodblock print is the left-hand sheet of a triptych. Its original arrangement extended beyond the surviving panel, so the figure’s appearance belongs to a larger party scene. The partial view allows a named person to remain the focus without pretending that the whole gathering is represented here. Utamaro’s subject gives leisure a personal anchor, making the artist’s participation in ordinary sociability part of the print’s human interest.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Kitagawa Utamaro collection.
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