Women of the pleasure quarters: a Japanese painted screen

Nice display at the British Museum taking one object, in this case a screen from the Yoshiwara , the most famous brothel district of Edo (modern-day Tokyo), looking at the context in which it was made and the image on it.

This was a beautiful  screen painted in the 1780s and showing five courtesans and eight trainees. It is an elegant image and the commentaries round it explain what each figure holds and its significance. The commentaries also look at the sort of lives these women would have lived.

It gives you a real sense of peeping into a private, past world.

 

 

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