Kitagawa UTAMARO (1753-1806), "Young Waitress at the Suminoe Tea House in Shiba".

From the series "Comparing the charms of the five beauties" (Gonin bijin aikyo kurabe),
color woodcut, oban, 37 x 25 cm,
Signature l.d.: Shomei Utamaro hitsu, stamp: Honke,
publisher: Omiya Gonkuro, circa 1795-1796.
Condition: numerous losses blinded by paper, discoloration in the face part, rubbing and creases in the kimono part.

Japanese artist, one of the most important masters of Japanese woodcut, an outstanding representative of the ukiyo-e genre. He is considered an unparalleled creator of bijin-ga - images of beautiful women. In the 1770s he became associated with Sekien's studio in Edo. At first he worked on illustrations for popular literature, and occasionally on portraits of kabuki actors. The artist established a partnership with renowned publisher Tsutaya Yuzaburo and continued to do illustrations for books. Around 1791, he stopped doing illustrations and focused on portraits of individual women. In 1793, he broke off from his publisher and devoted himself to his own work, to develop his recognizable style in the 1790s, the central figure of which was the beautiful women of the Yoshiwara district. In addition to portraits of women, over time he began painting animals, insects, nature studies and erotic illustrations (shunga). The artist was one of the few Japanese artists of the ukiyo-e genre who enjoyed fame in his own country during his lifetime. Utamaro and Hokusai were the first Japanese artists to attract European interest; admirers of his work included Monet, Degas, Gauguin and Tolouse-Lautrec, and in 1891 Edmond de Goncourd published his first biography.