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Kitagawa Utamaro

The Courtesans Kasugano and Utahama of Tamaya, from Courtesans of the Pleasure Quarters in Double Mirrors

c. 1800
color woodblock print

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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

Kitagawa Utamaro was well known for his close-up portraits that belonged to a genre, or category, of images called bijinga (pictures of beautiful people). This print is from a series that invites comparisons of the attractiveness of different figures. It features two sex workers from an establishment in the Yoshiwara district of Edo (now Tokyo).

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