Kitagawa Utamaro (1754-1806), Fukagawa in Snow (Fukagawa no yuki), Edo period, early 19th century | 喜多川歌麿　深川の雪　江戸時代　19世紀初頭

Kamaya Zenno Ihe (d. 1824), Tochigi

Samuel Siegfried Bing (1838-1905), Paris, late 1880s

Takeo Nagase (1907-?), Tokyo, 1939

Private collection, Japan

Acquired from the above, 2012

Dai ni-kai ukiyo-e meisakuten [Masterpieces of Ukiyo-e, the Second Exhibition], Matsuzakaya, Tokyo, 1948,

Utamaro seitan nihyakunen sai, ukiyo-e dai tenrankai [Masterpieces of Ukiyo-e: The 200^th Anniversary of Kitagawa Utamaro], Matsuzakaya, Tokyo, 1952

Saihakken Utamaro Fukagawa no yuki [Rediscovery of Kitagawa Utamaro’s Fukagawa in Snow], Okada Museum of Art, Hakone, 2014, no number.

Utamaro taisaku Fukagawa no yuki to Yoshiwara no hana [Utamaro's Masterpieces Reunited: Fukagawa in Snow and Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara], Okada Museum of Art, Hakone, 2017, no number.

5th Anniversary Exhibition. All-Stars of the Okada Collection: Masterworks of Korin, Jakuchu, Hokusai and the Ru Ware Kilns, Okada Museum of Art, Hakone, 2018-19, exh. no. 416.

Hokusai's Paintings with Additional Woodblock Prints and Shunga Masterpieces: Commemorating the 260th Anniversary of the Artist's Birth, Okada Museum of Art, Hakone, 2020, no. 32.

10th Anniversary Utamaro and Hokusai, Okada Museum of Art, Hakone, 2023, no. 26.

Nihon bijutsu zenshu [Complete Japanese Art], vol. 15, Edo jidai IV Ukiyo-e to Edo no bijutsu [Ukiyo-e and Art in the Edo period], Tokyo, 2014, no. 58.

Kobayashi Tadashi ed., Masterpieces of the Okada Museum of Art, vol. 2, Tokyo, 2018, p. 142-43, no. 75.

Asano Shugo, "Utamaro's Fukagawa in Snow" in Kokka [Flower of the Nation], vol. 1427, Tokyo, September 2019.

Utamaro's Fukagawa in Snow

Fukagawa in Snow stands among Utamaro’s finest achievements, and a panoramic masterpiece of the ukiyo-e tradition.  

Undeterred by the chill of winter, the upper floor of a grand teahouse is bustling with a plethora of movement and activity. The lively plucking of a shamisen resounds through the establishment as female visitors, geisha - or potentially courtesans - as well as their young trainees and attendants are engaged in all manner of leisure and occupation. A group of five ladies warm themselves by a large brazier; a visitor with a young boy in tow is harassed by a kitten pulling at the hem of her robe. Directly above, another woman points towards two sparrows in flight above pine trees caked in snow. Before an alcove (tokonoma) – installed with an ink painting of Mount Fuji and a blue and white cylindrical vase with an arrangement of narcissus flowers – a group play spirited parlour games performed with rhythmic hand gestures (ken-asobi) to musical accompaniment.

We are in an elegant part of the Fukagawa licensed pleasure district. In a convention known as fukinuki-yatai [lit. blown-off roof], some architectural obstructions – such as the roof, walls and shoji panels – have been removed to give us a clearer view into this interior scene. In the foreground, we see a serving woman carrying a red lacquer tray with a delectably cooked fish in a blue and white shallow bowl, followed by a lady bearing a red lacquer cup and an ewer for sake. Along one of the corridors, an attendant carries a large furoshiki bundle preceded by a woman carrying a case for a shamisen. In one of the most endearing vignettes, a young apprentice following along in a corridor to the lower right carries a tray of snow – presumably moulded into a rabbit, a custom equivalent to making a snowman. She pauses, blowing on one of her hands to ward off the cold from her fingers.  

The attendant carrying the large furoshiki represents a practice characteristic of the Fukagawa licensed quarters. When a geisha or courtesan was summoned to a teahouse to entertain guests, an attendant would bring their bedding and bedclothes for the overnight stay. This custom was unique to Fukagawa and not found in the other licensed pleasure quarters in Yoshiwara or Shinagawa.¹ Furthermore, the more subdued clothing of the women, predominantly in indigos and darker hues, suggest the understated taste of the women of Fukagawa as opposed to the more flamboyant Yoshiwara courtesans.²

This monumental painting spans over three metres wide. Executed on two large, joined sheets of imported Chinese paper, its scale and scope are unprecedented in Utamaro’s oeuvre. Twenty-seven figures, comprising twenty-six young women and one boy, formulate narrative groups that call and respond across the entirety of the composition. Apart from the young child, all the figures – both visitors and hosts alike – are portrayed as women. This was a conventional device scene in ukiyo-e and often employed in the mode of mitate, or elegant confusion, of depicting familiar or classical subjects in re-imagined circumstances. Among the diverse figurative activity, Utamaro employs an array of luxurious pigments: malachite green, vermillion, pale indigo for the clouds, deep sumi with a lacquer like sheen and simulated metallic pigments are all richly applied to sumptuous effect.

Fukagawa in Snow is part of a three-part set of Snow, Moon and Flowers (Setsugekka), and is thought to have been commissioned by the affluent Tochigi merchant Kamaya Zenno Ihei (d. 1824). The other two works, Moon at Shinagawa (Shinagawa no tsuki, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, accession number F1903.54) and Flowers at Yoshiwara (Yoshiwara no hana, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT) are believed to have been part of the same commission. The theme of Snow, Moon and Flowers was popularised during the Edo period (1615-1868) and refers to an ideal of Japanese beauty and aesthetics through the colour white and its association with the seasons: snow pertaining to winter, moon specifically an autumn harvest moon, and flowers to the whitish florets of spring cherry blossom. The allusion is further extended here by linking this poetic motif with one of each of the three licensed pleasure quarters. The unprecedented scale and lavishness of the entire commissions leaves many questions to be answered around the intention of the work, as well as the employment of an ukiyo-e artist to create such an inspired and financially costly series said to have taken Utamaro over ten years to complete.

Almost eighty years after its execution, the work was displayed as part of an exhibition for the Zenno family collection at the Joganji Temple in Tochigi on the 23^rd November, 1879. Snow and Flowers then entered the Paris art market in the late 1880s, where they were acquired by the great Japoniste collector Samuel Siegfried Bing (1838-1905). Moon is said to have been purchased around 1891-92 by the art dealer Tadamasa Hayashi (1853-1906) and brought to Paris. Both Moon and Flowers eventually travelled further westwards to America, where they have since then resided and are currently in the Freer Gallery and Wadsworth Atheneum respectively. Snow at Fukagawa had a different fate: it was returned to Japan by the ukyio-e collector Nagase Takeo (dates unknown) in 1939 and was exhibited some thirteen years later at the Matsuzakaya department store in 1952. This would be the last public sighting of the work for almost seventy years – after its installation at the exhibition its whereabouts vanished from public record. It was not until it was rediscovered in 2012, that this work was finally returned to view in the Okada Museum of Art.

Born in Edo around 1753, Kitagawa Utamaro trained under the Kano school painter Toriyama Seikien (1712-1788). Intimately acquainted with the life and customs of the Yoshiwara district, he became renowned for his bijin-ga, or portraits of beautiful women – particularly in the okubi-e (large-headed) style of ‘large headed’ bust portraits. In 1804, he was briefly placed under house arrest following a satirical depiction of the historical figure Toyotomi Hideyosh (1537-1598); he died in Edo two years later. In his own lifetime, and to this day, Utamaro is one of the most celebrated ukiyo-e artists of the Edo period.

^1. Asano Shugo, ‘Utamaro’s Fukagawa in Snow’ in Kokka [Flower of the Nation], vol. 1427, Tokyo, 2019, p. 33. 

^2. ibid.

來源

善野伊兵衛，栃木

賽繆爾‧西格佛里德‧賓（1838 –1905年），巴黎，1880年代末

長瀬武郎 （1907-？），東京，1939年

日本私人收藏

2012年購於上者

展覽

《第2回浮世絵名作展》，松坂屋（上野），東京，1948年（沒載圖）

《歌麿生誕200年祭　浮世絵大展覧会》，松坂屋（上野），東京，1952年（沒載圖）

《再発見歌麿深川の雪》，岡田美術館，箱根，2014年（沒載圖）

《歌麿大作「深川の雪」と「吉原の花」―138年ぶりの夢の再会―》，岡田美術館，箱根，2017年（沒載圖）

《開館5周年記念展　美のスターたち》，岡田美術館，箱根，2018年，展覽編號416（沒載圖）

《北斎の肉筆画 ―版画・春画の名作とともに―》，岡田美術館，箱根，2023年，展覽編號32（沒載圖）

《開館10周年記念　歌麿と北斎 時代を作った浮世絵師》，岡田美術館，箱根，2023年，展覽編號26（沒載圖）

出版

《日本美術全集》, 卷15：江戸時代 IV 浮世絵と江戸の美術，東京，2014年，編號58

小林忠編，《岡田美術館名品撰》，卷2，東京，2018年，編號75

浅野秀剛, 《喜多川歌麿筆 深川の雪》，《國華》， 1427號， 2019年9月， 頁33-35

喜多川歌麿《深川之雪》

《深川之雪》屹立於歌麿創作巔峰，亦為浮世繪傳統中不朽之全景巨構。

無畏冬寒，宏偉茶屋二樓洋溢著盎然生機與紛繁活動。三味線的明快撥奏迴盪於建築之中，女客、花魁或藝妓，連同其年輕弟子與隨從，皆沉浸於各式休閒與職務之中。五位佳人圍坐大火鉢取暖；一位攜幼童的訪客遭小貓拉扯衣袂而困擾。正上方，另一女子指向覆雪松樹上空飛翔的兩隻麻雀。於床之間前，內懸富士山墨畫與青花瓷筒瓶插飾水仙花，一群女子正隨著樂伴奏，以韻律手勢進行生動的猜拳遊戲（拳遊）。

此刻我們置身於深川官方遊廓的雅緻室內。採用「吹拔屋台」傳統手法，部分建築結構如屋頂、牆壁與障子已被移除，令觀者得以清晰窺見此內景全貌。前景可見侍女手捧朱漆托盤，盛有置於青花淺碟中的香煎魚肴，其後跟隨手持朱漆盃與酒銚的貴婦。廊道中，一位侍從提著大風呂敷包袱，前有女子攜帶三味線箱（羽織）。右下方廊道中，年輕學徒手捧雪盤，可以推測她會依習俗塑為雪兔（類同堆雪人）。她駐足呵氣暖手，以驅散指尖寒意。

攜大風呂敷之侍從形象乃深川遊廓獨有特徵。當藝妓或花魁應召至茶屋待客時，隨從會攜帶其寢具以備留宿。此習俗唯深川獨具，未見於吉原或品川等其他官方遊廓。¹ 此外，女子衣飾多採靛藍與暗色系，相較於吉原花魁之華豔裝束，更顯深川女子內斂之審美情趣。²

此恢弘畫作橫跨逾三米。繪於兩張拼接的中國進口宣紙上，其規模與視野於歌麿創作中前所未見。二十七位人物（含二十六名年輕女子與一男童）組成敘事群像，彼此呼應於整幅構圖之中。除男童外，所有人物，無論賓主，皆以女性形象呈現。在豐富的人物活動間，歌麿運用多樣華貴顏料：孔雀石綠、銀朱、淡靛藍繪雲彩，泛漆光的濃墨及仿金屬彩料，以豐郁敷彩營造出華麗效果。

《深川之雪》原屬「雪月花」三部曲系列，據信受富商栃木善野伊兵衛（歿於1824年）委託創作。另兩件作品《品川之月》（華盛頓弗瑞爾藝廊，館藏編號F1903.54）與《吉原之花》（哈特福德沃茲沃思美術館）被認為屬於同批委託之作。「雪月花」主題於江戶時期（1615-1868年）廣為流傳，藉白色聯結四季美學：雪屬冬，月特指秋穫月，花則指春日淡粉櫻絮。此處更將詩意母題與三大遊廓相繫。 後世對這套委託作之規模與奢華程度仍有諸多疑問，如其創作之意圖，以及如何聘請浮世繪師創作此耗時逾十載、斥資甚鉅的啟發性作品。

作品完成近八十年後，曾於1879年11月23日在栃木淨岸寺舉辦的善波家族收藏展中亮相。《深川之雪》與《吉原之花》於1880年代末進入巴黎藝術市場，由重要日本藝術收藏家薩穆埃爾·齊格弗里德·賓（1838-1905）購藏。《品川之月》據稱約於1891-1892年間由畫商林忠正購入並攜至巴黎。《月》與《花》最終西渡美國，分別入藏弗里爾美術館與沃茲沃思美術館。而《深川之雪》命運殊異：1939年由浮世繪收藏家長瀨武夫（生卒年不詳）帶回日本。1952年於松坂屋百貨展出，此後近七十載未現公眾視野，直至2012年重現於岡田美術館。

歌麿約於1753年生於江戶，師從狩野派畫師鳥山石燕（1712–1788年）。作為遊歷吉原的文人雅士，他以美人畫聞名於世，尤擅「大首繪」風格半身肖像。1804年因諷刺描繪歷史人物豐臣秀吉（1537-1598年），歌麿遭短暫軟禁；兩年後歿於江戶。在其生前至今，歌麿始終是江戶時代最負盛名的浮世繪師之一。

^1. 淺野秀剛，《歌麿之〈深川之雪〉》，載《國華》（Flower of the Nation），第1427卷，東京，2019年，頁33。

^2. 同上。