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Pleasure Boat on the Sumida River
Also known as: Party in a Boat; Boat to the Yoshiwara
About the Artwork
After a major fire in Edo (now Tokyo), the Yoshiwara licensed brothel district was relocated to an area accessed via boat along the Sumida River, giving rise to many compositions depicting travel there. Here, attendants with checkered robes serve refreshment to a client. A figure at the fore of the boat tends to the kitchen. A courtesan at the aft, or rear, surveys the river scene. Acquaintances converse in modest commuter boats, and fishers put in to a tiny island. The boat is near the entrance to the San’ya Canal, where pleasure-seekers would disembark.
Inscriptions
Signed: Teisai. Sealed: Teisai go [no] in
Provenance
(David Newman, London, UK, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Kelvin Smith) ?–1985: The Kelvin Smith Collection, Cleveland, OH, given by Mrs. Kelvin [Eleanor Armstrong] Smith [1899–1998] to the Cleveland Museum of Art 1985–: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
A Private World: Japanese and Chinese Art from the Kelvin Smith Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 14-November 13, 1988). Visions of Japan: Prints and Paintings from Cleveland Collections. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 12, 2004-April 10, 2005). Japan’s Floating World 日本の浮世. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (April 8-October 9, 2022).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Teisai Hokuba (Japanese, 1771–1844)
- Date
- 1800s
- Medium
- Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk
- Dimensions
- Overall: 153.3 x 76.2 cm (60 3/8 x 30 in.); Painting only: 40 x 55.3 cm (15 3/4 x 21 3/4 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Credit line
- The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith
- Accession no.
- 1985.262
More by Teisai Hokuba in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00009996
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