This second print in the trilogy Famous Sites of Edo (Edo meisho), titled Moon (Getsu), depicts the first floor of a courtesan’s house on a beautiful autumn night during the full moon.
The fifteenth night of the eighth month—called mid-autumn (chūshū, 仲秋)—was widely appreciated for admiring the beauty of the moon. In his Illustrated Almanac of the Green-Houses (Seirō ehon nenjū gyōji, 青楼絵本年中行事), the writer Jippensha Ikku (十返舎一九, 1765–1831) noted that “in the courtesans’ houses, they composed Chinese poems and Japanese verses, enjoying a banquet throughout the night in refined company.” On this occasion, courtesans who joined such gatherings would receive an extra fee.
Hiroshige shows two courtesans, one holding a shamisen, the other a long pipe (kiseru), as they prepare to enter the banquet room, where another woman is already seated.
Bibliography
- Matsuki, Bunkyo (松木文恭). Catalogue of Japanese Prints, 1924, no. 83 (former collection of Nakamura Tatsujirō).
- Hosaka, Kazuhiko (保坂一彦). 江戸の花 浮世絵展 (Ukiyo-e Geijutsu), no. 80, 1967.
- Sugimoto, Jun. Catalogue of Japanese Prints, 1998, no. 281 (National Museum, Kraków).
- Tanba, Norio (丹波則雄). Hiroshige: Edo no Meisho, 1965, no. 42.
- Tanba, Norio. Hiroshige Fan Prints, 2004, no. 10 (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History).
- Okuda, Yasuhiro (奥田保浩). Hiroshige Uchiwa-e, 2010, no. 11 (Kanagawa Prefectural Museum of Cultural History), list no. 17.
