The Fitzwilliam Museum - Ka - Ryôgoku kawa, by Utagawa Kunisada

An image of Ka - Ryôgoku kawa. Kunisada, Utagawa (Japanese, 1786-1865). Colour print from woodblocks. Uchiwa, 223 x 296. Signed: Toyokuni ga in toshidama cartouche. Block-cutter: hori Take (Yokokawa Takejirô). Publisher: Jôshûya Kinzô. Censor’s date seal: horse kiwame. 1858. Ukiyo-e. Notes: From an untitled set of four prints depicting the four seasons, which were intended to be mounted as the type of non-folding fans called uchiwa. Traces of yellow-coloured paper used to mount these examples in the past remain around the edge of the sheets. The tradition of designing prints to decorate fans probably began in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The blocks were rounded at the edges and cut away at the bottom where the bamboo ribs of the support joined the handle. Faint indentations from the ribs can be seen on these prints. As fans tended to be used, worn out and then discarded, relatively few fan prints have survived. Those that remain are normally examples that were never mounted, such as those bound in a fan-seller’s sample book. This series is notable for the way Kunisada has portrayed complex pictorial space in the awkward confines of the uchiwa format. Each print has a subtitle giving the location in Edo and a poem (senryû) commenting on the scene. In this print a woman has just crossed Yanagi Bridge over the Kanda River on her way back from the bathhouse. She clasps her cotton summer robe (yukata) under her arm, combs her hair and holds between her teeth a ‘bran bag’ (nuka-bukuro), which was used in the manner of soap to clean the skin. The sign on the right with the common advertising slogan, Funayado — senkyaku banrai (Boat-inn — thousands of customers, ten thousands of visits), belongs to one of the restaurants that provided boat-service, either for picnics on the river or to take people from the busy entertainment district of Ryôgoku up the Sumida River to the Yoshiwara. The water-taxis (chokibune) used for this purpose can be seen on the

Terms of use

These images are provided for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons License (BY-NC-ND). To license a high resolution version, please contact our image library who will discuss fees, terms and waivers.

Download this image

Creative commons explained - what it means, how you can use our's and other people's content.

Ka - Ryôgoku kawa. Kunisada, Utagawa (Japanese, 1786-1865). Colour print from woodblocks. Uchiwa, 223 x 296. Signed: Toyokuni ga in toshidama cartouche. Block-cutter: hori Take (Yokokawa Takejirô). Publisher: Jôshûya Kinzô. Censor’s date seal: horse kiwame. 1858. Ukiyo-e. Notes: From an untitled set of four prints depicting the four seasons, which were intended to be mounted as the type of non-folding fans called uchiwa. Traces of yellow-coloured paper used to mount these examples in the past remain around the edge of the sheets. The tradition of designing prints to decorate fans probably began in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. The blocks were rounded at the edges and cut away at the bottom where the bamboo ribs of the support joined the handle. Faint indentations from the ribs can be seen on these prints. As fans tended to be used, worn out and then discarded, relatively few fan prints have survived. Those that remain are normally examples that were never mounted, such as those bound in a fan-seller’s sample book. This series is notable for the way Kunisada has portrayed complex pictorial space in the awkward confines of the uchiwa format. Each print has a subtitle giving the location in Edo and a poem (senryû) commenting on the scene. In this print a woman has just crossed Yanagi Bridge over the Kanda River on her way back from the bathhouse. She clasps her cotton summer robe (yukata) under her arm, combs her hair and holds between her teeth a ‘bran bag’ (nuka-bukuro), which was used in the manner of soap to clean the skin. The sign on the right with the common advertising slogan, Funayado — senkyaku banrai (Boat-inn — thousands of customers, ten thousands of visits), belongs to one of the restaurants that provided boat-service, either for picnics on the river or to take people from the busy entertainment district of Ryôgoku up the Sumida River to the Yoshiwara. The water-taxis (chokibune) used for this purpose can be seen on the

Image data

Accession Number: P.6-1985
Photograph copyright © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
Photographer name: Image Library; Fitzwilliam Museum
Image height: 827 pixels
Image width: 1024 pixels
Processed with: Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.0 (Windows)
Filesize: 0.96MB

Key words

19th Century ablutions clothes clothing colour printing combing combing hair combs costume Edo Period fan fan shaped fans female Fitz_PDP four seasons hair hairstyle Japanese Kunisada print river river scene robes seasons Summer uchiwa ukiyo-e Utagawa Kunisada washing woman woodblock woodcut yukata

Citation for print

This page can be cited in the Harvard Bibliographic style using the text below:


            The Fitzwilliam Museum (2024)
            "Ka - Ryôgoku kawa, by Utagawa Kunisada"
            Web page available at: https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-909801009 Accessed: 2024-04-26 12:36:31

Citation for Wikipedia

To cite this page on Wikipedia you can use this code snippet:


            {{cite web|url=https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/id/image/media-909801009
            |title=Ka - Ryôgoku kawa, by Utagawa Kunisada
            |author=The Fitzwilliam Museum|accessdate=2024-04-26 12:36:31|publisher=The
            University of Cambridge}}

API call for this record

To call these data via our API (remember this needs to be authenticated) you can use this code snippet:

https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/api/v1/images/media-218639

Bootstrap HTML code for reuse

To use this as a simple code embed, copy this string:

<div class="text-center">
    <figure class="figure">
        <img src="https://data.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/imagestore/pdp/pdp82/P_6_1985_dc2.jpg"
        alt="Ka — Ryôgoku kawa"
        class="img-fluid" />
        <figcaption class="figure-caption text-info">Ka - Ryôgoku kawa, by Utagawa Kunisada</figcaption>
    </figure>
</div>