The Floating World Takes Shape

Isoda Koryūsai

Three Types of Drunks

c. 1770

Woodblock print; ink and color on paper, 69.8 × 11.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Three tipsy figures, stacked up a tall sheet, play a stock trio of Edo art and literature.

• The sheet was trimmed at left, cutting into the signature.
• Utamaro later took up the same theme in a triptych.
• Young fashionable women take the men's usual place, a favorite twist of Koryūsai's.

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