Mattia Jona, Master Drawings and Prints, Japanese Prints - Piazzetta Guastalla 5, 20122 Milan, Italy, tel (+39) 02 8053315

TORII KIYONAGA (1752 - 1815) A STANDING MAN READING A LETTER IN A BROTHEL, SECRETELY WATCHED BY A GEISHA AND BY A MAID
Woodcut, pillar-print ('hashira-e'); Pins 712, c.1779. The impression presented here is, in fact, the same impression reproduced by Pins, originally for sale at Sotheby's, London, 25/1/1978. Signed 'Kiyonaga ga'. Very good impression, fairly good colour, light creasing, a few worm-holes, partly touched in black ink. 692 x 123 mm.
A 'mitate' (parody) of the famous letter-reading scene in the kabuki play 'Chushingura'.

Torii Kiyonaga is considered one of the great masters of the full-colour print (nishiki-e) and of 'bijinga', images of courtesans and other beautiful women. Although not biologically related to the Torii family (his real name was Sekiguchi Shinsuke), he became head of the group after the death of his adoptive father and teacher Torii Kiyomitsu. Kiyonaga began his career with pictures of kabuki actors, a genre for which the Torii school was well-known, but later he began to draw beautiful women. Kiyonaga produced a great many 'bijinga' prints in the 1780s, and this is generally regarded as his high point. The women in Kiyonaga's prints are often described as seeming fuller and more mature than those of his predecessor Harunobu, whose prints often depict women who seem younger and thinner. Though a difference of personal styles accounts for this primarily, it also comes in part from Kiyonaga's use of larger sheets of paper ('oban', rather than 'chuban' or 'hosoban'). Also, a great proportion of Kiyonaga's work is in diptych or triptych form, making the work seem larger and more impressive overall.