Clair de Lune: August 2024

Utagawa Kuniyoshi - Autumn, from the series Women’s Pleasures of the Four Seasons, ca. 1844–46
Triptych of woodblock prints; ink, silver, and color on paper
24.8 x 56.2 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

After governmental restrictions of the 1840s were loosened, Kuniyoshi made a sumptuous series of prints of women in the four seasons. All four of the triptychs in the series present three women with a child. This print, the best of the four, illustrates the women and a boy viewing the moon from boats. The misty clouds covering the moon are delicately depicted with light ink and silver powder (presently tarnished). Kuniyoshi included a severely cropped bridge support pole in the right border and arranged the reflection of the lantern in the waves In the cartouche at the upper right corner a poem by Genkō is inscribed "Look at that, then look up at the sky, and admire the moon with geese."