Lot details Japan, 19th century. Ink, watercolor, and gouache on paper. Mounted as a hanging scroll, on a silk brocade coated paper frame, with lacquered wooden handles. Depicting a group of five female skeletons, large and small, carrying a parasol above an elaborately robed skeleton wearing the head ornament of a high-ranking courtesan, flanked by a pair of skeletons carrying a lantern and a cricket cage, with a smaller skeleton dressed in a girl’s robe. Provenance: From a British private collection of Japanese paintings, mostly focusing on paintings of Yurei and other bakemono. Condition: Good condition with minor wear, creasing, light soiling, few wormholes with associated touchups. The silk brocade with wear, traces of age, minor losses, loose threads, and wear. Dimensions: Image size 51.5 x 58 cm, Size. Incl. mounting 132.5 x 69 cm The Orian Dochu was a procession of the courtesans of Yoshiwara during the Edo period. The procession starts with dancers and musicians marching along the street wearing kitsune (fox) masks, symbolizing the god of Inari, patron of the Yoshiwara women. After that, a night watchman called “kanabo-hiki” makes noise and alerts the crowd using metal sticks with rings. The processions were a means of showcasing the women in the brothels who followed behind the dancers and musicians. Unlike the vengeful Gashadokuro, the skeletons in this painting are not of abnormal size. These are more likely a depiction of Yomi, the Japanese underworld, as skeletons were an important feature in the Japanese imagery of the underworld. They also held extreme significance in the Japanese Shinto funerary rituals in which the bones would be picked from the cremated corpse by the family and interred in a funerary urn.
Lot details Japan, 19th century. Ink, watercolor, and gouache on paper. Mounted as a hanging scroll, on a silk brocade coated paper frame, with lacquered wooden handles. Depicting a group of five female skeletons, large and small, carrying a parasol above an elaborately robed skeleton wearing the head ornament of a high-ranking courtesan, flanked by a pair of skeletons carrying a lantern and a cricket cage, with a smaller skeleton dressed in a girl’s robe. Provenance: From a British private collection of Japanese paintings, mostly focusing on paintings of Yurei and other bakemono. Condition: Good condition with minor wear, creasing, light soiling, few wormholes with associated touchups. The silk brocade with wear, traces of age, minor losses, loose threads, and wear. Dimensions: Image size 51.5 x 58 cm, Size. Incl. mounting 132.5 x 69 cm The Orian Dochu was a procession of the courtesans of Yoshiwara during the Edo period. The procession starts with dancers and musicians marching along the street wearing kitsune (fox) masks, symbolizing the god of Inari, patron of the Yoshiwara women. After that, a night watchman called “kanabo-hiki” makes noise and alerts the crowd using metal sticks with rings. The processions were a means of showcasing the women in the brothels who followed behind the dancers and musicians. Unlike the vengeful Gashadokuro, the skeletons in this painting are not of abnormal size. These are more likely a depiction of Yomi, the Japanese underworld, as skeletons were an important feature in the Japanese imagery of the underworld. They also held extreme significance in the Japanese Shinto funerary rituals in which the bones would be picked from the cremated corpse by the family and interred in a funerary urn.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
