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Two Beauties
About the Artwork
Shigemasa favored using colors in broad opaque masses, as seen here in the beauties’ robes. He was a painter, printmaker, and poet, specializing in courtesan and actor prints. The format of this hanging scroll or "pillar painting" allows for the work to be hung on a pillar in a Japanese home.
Inscriptions
Artist's signature and seal, lower right corner. Poem inscribed on upper section of scroll.
Provenance
(David Newman, London, UK, sold to Mr. and Mrs. Kelvin Smith) ? before 1977–1985: 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
Portraiture: The Image of the Individual. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 22, 1983-January 22, 1984). 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).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Kitao Shigemasa (Japanese, 1739–1819)
- Date
- late 1700s–early 1800s
- Medium
- hanging scroll, pillar painting: ink and color on silk
- Dimensions
- Painting only: 104.8 x 15.5 cm (41 1/4 x 6 1/8 in.); Including mounting: 175.3 x 32.7 cm (69 x 12 7/8 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Japanese Art
- Credit line
- The Kelvin Smith Collection, given by Mrs. Kelvin Smith
- Accession no.
- 1985.274
More by Kitao Shigemasa 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-00010032
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