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Museums Worcestershire
Keisai Eisen did a number of landscape prints but the bulk of his output consists ofbijin-ga and shunga (erotic prints)
THIS woodblock print is a portrait of a high-ranking courtesan, parading in front of a flowering peony in an extravagant kimono.
It is one of a series of three prints by a prolific and notorious artist Keisai Eisen (1790 – 1848) and one of the most decorative of the Japanese prints in the Museum collection.
Eisen was a larger-than-life character among Japanese ukiyo-e artists – ukiyo-e prints represented every-day and leisure activities of common people.
The son of a calligrapher, he did a number of landscape prints but the bulk of his output consists ofbijin-ga and shunga (erotic prints) reflecting the decadent life of the yoshiwara – the pleasure quarter of the city which he knew extremely well.