Gardens and Pavilions of Pleasure

Original Language Title遊郭図

Artist Hishikawa Moronobu (Japanese, ca. 1618 - 1694)

CultureJapanese

Datelate 17th century

MediumSix-panel screen; ink and colors on paper

DimensionsOverall: 30 3/4 × 90 3/4 inches (78.11 × 230.51 cm)

Credit LinePurchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust

Object number32-83/16

On View

Not on view

Gallery Location

Collections

East Asian Art

Terms

Exhibition History

Origins: Collecting to Create the Nelson-Atkins, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, August 14, 2021-March 6, 2022.

Hokusai: Masterpieces from the Spencer Museum of Art, Richardson-North Collection, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, September 21, 2024 - February 1, 2025.

Lasting Impressions: The Art of Japanese Woodblock Prints, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, April 5, 2025–July 6, 2025, no cat.

Gallery Label

Located in a suburb of Edo (present-day Tokyo), the world of New Yoshiwara brothels was glamorized in pictorial art during the Edo period (1615–1868). New Yoshiwara was a cultural hub for wealthy sophisticates who enjoyed artistic pursuits. They started cultural trends that crept into Edo’s popular culture. Hishikawa Moronobu, a pioneer artist in the rise of ukiyo-e in the 1600s, portrayed fashionably dressed men and women engaging in different activities. These idealized figures created an illusion of New Yoshiwara as a beautiful, sophisticated, and serene place, while real working conditions there were harsh and not as harmonious as this painting shows.

Provenance

With K. Matsuki, Kamakura, Japan, by October 31, 1931-1932 [1];

Purchased from Matsuki, through Langdon Warner (1881-1955), by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1932.

NOTES:

[1] Letter from K. Matsuki to Langdon Warner, Nelson-Atkins Advisor, October 31, 1931, Nelson-Atkins curatorial files.

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