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Kitagawa Utamaro

Net Fishing at Night on the Sumida River

c. 1800
Triptych of color woodblock prints

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In the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland · as of July 2026

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FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG

In this triptych (a composition of three prints), a nighttime drinking party on a pleasure boat is interrupted by an encounter with a fishing boat on the Sumida River in Edo (now Tokyo). A young man in a bold, checked robe distributes lacquer dishes of sake to his female companions, while another man sits on the boat’s roof, peering at the fisherman’s net. The fisherman struggles to control the net as a woman in the party boat offers her sake dish, her robe pulled open at the neck to enjoy the evening cool.

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