Beauties and Actors

Kitagawa Utamaro

Three Beauties of the Kansei Period

c. 1791

Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 38.7 × 25.7 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Three women are pressed close together, their heads and shoulders filling the sheet.

• A handwritten note in one corner reads “Three Beautiful Women.”
• Sarah Thompson notes that he later faced official limits on close-ups like this.
• The bust portrait, or big head (ōkubi-e), brought the viewer face to face with the beauty.

Kansei

An era name covering 1789–1801.

Image: The Met Open Access · Public domain (Met Open Access)