Page 164 - Christies Japanese and Korean Art Sept 22 2020 NYC

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KATSUSHIKA HOKUSAI (1760-1849)
New Year’s Day in the Yoshiwara
Woodblock print, pentaptych, signed Katsushika Hokusai ga,
published by Iseya Rihei
Vertical oban: 15 x 10º in. (38.1 x 26 cm.) each (5)
$100,000-200,000

It is New Year’s Day at an exclusive brothel in the Yoshiwara. courtesans: a twenty-year-old full-rank courtesan with billowing
The courtesans are decked out in color-coordinated finery in a black and white obi, her two teenage assistants in matching outfits
multitiered panorama of animated vignettes. The kitchen staff are and a third attendant who has noticed something to their right.
stoking the ovens for the banquet to come. Some eighty people Opposite them a manservant is talking with a courtesan leaning on
are talking, twisting around, opening presents, calling down from the post. A child attendant watches another girl make a rectangle
the balcony. The proprietor of the house in sheet four is having his with her fingers at a cook as he gestures back behind his sleeve.
fortune read, rather blasé about the prospects. A girl next to him is
avidly reading a new novel that has arrived as a gift. A very young At first glance, the peacock mural in the back hall of sheet two
courtesan in the upper left of sheet three is so anxious to make up seems a clue to the actual setting. The traditional association of the
in the mirror under the tutelage of an elder that she has upturned pentaptych with the Ogiya brothel might have to do with reading the
her sandal in her haste to enter the room. This Hokusai’s sole peacock here for a phoenix panel shown in earlier ukiyo-e, notably
ukiyo-e pentaptych and a spectacle. a book illustration of an artist painting a phoenix mural in Yoshiwara
Picture Book: Annual Events by Kitagawa Utamaro (Museum of Fine
To proceed from right to left in the Japanese manner, a man, holding Arts, Boston, 2011.806) and a titled triptych by Chokosai Eisho (act.
an umbrella, and a woman with their backs to us are greeting a 1780–1800) of three courtesans on display before a phoenix panel at
courtesan, half obscured by the pillar inscribed with a fire warning, the Chojiya house (The Art Institute of Chicago, 1925.2343). The
and her attendant who have just walked through the green curtain “eyes” on the feathers in Hokusai’s print distinguish it as a peacock,
over the doorway. A manservant taking a tea break on the edge of leaving the question open as to whether this was artistic license or a
the floor platform has turned to look. Just left is the first group of feature of a different establishment. In any case, there is no basis for