A couple of things about this print, recently tweeted by @cma_japanese, caught my eye. The print is by Suzuki Harunobu 鈴木春信, & is described as "The Courtesan (From A Collection of Beautiful Women of the Yoshiwara), 1770" [a thread, with questions]

#ukiyoe #printing

1/n

First off, it’s evidently a page cut from a book, so I was curious to learn more about the book. Second, as is generally true of Edo period pictorial prints, there’s text as well as image to read--and not just the inscribed poem, in this case...

2/n

Figured out the original book title via guesses in the NIJL database (tried kw: 美人合 plus auth: 鈴木春信): it’s _Ehon Seirō bijin awase_ 絵本青楼美人合 (5 vols). Published by Funaki Kasuke 舟木嘉助 et al. (Edo; Meiwa 7 /1770)

No digital copies listed in NIJL, but...

3/n

...happily there is a fine digital copy available in the NDL collection--also it's IIIF compatible!

https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1286776

The Cleveland print is in vol. 4, leaf 10 recto (leaf is numbered 58 五十八, as the book's numbering is cumulative)

So far so good.

4/n

Moving on to the other part of the original Cleveland print that got my attention: the courtesan depicted is reading a book, one volume in hand, two on the floor by her. The text in the book is unreadable scribble, but the book *title* is clear enough to read

5/n

She’s reading a book called _Nenashigusa_ ねなし草 -- presumably the famous kokkeibon (funny book) of that name by Hiraga Gennai 平賀源内, published in Hōreki 13 (1763). Definitely a choice suggesting wit & style!

6/n

Look through all 5 volumes of Harunobu's book, source of the Cleveland print, & you find other cases of images with identifiable reading matter. The print subjects are depicted engaged in some activity (music, writing, etc.), & the readers all seem to have unique texts

7/n

Here are some other examples, (& more in next tweet)

The British Museum (which has digitised vol. 3) notes, “The work is also a treasury of detail on the textiles and applied arts of the day.”

To which some of us just have to add:

¿What. About. The. BOOKS!?!

8/n

It would make a neat project, to track them all & build a virtual library.

Good to transcribe the poems, too, I guess, if that hasn’t been done--there are two modern facsimile editions [1915 and 1917] but no transcription, afaik.

Paging @ozu_mu: maybe you know of one?

/end

Have to add a p.s. with one more reading -- Harunobu gets in a cheeky plug for one of his own books--Ehon ukiyobukuro 絵本浮世袋, newly published that same year!

Masters of product placement, these Edo book folks

#BookHistory

?end (no really, time for bed)