Height: 106 centimetres

Width: 45 centimetres

Clark 1992

Ando's compositions for paintings of beautiful women were consistently more inventive than the single standing figures of beauties that came to dominate the works of his pupils (nos 22, 23), and here a courtesan pauses, turning to look back, as she enters the hanging tent of a mosquito net, where summer sleeping-mats have already been laid. Her kimono has a design of 'tomoe' roundels built up in three-dimensional swirls of gesso covered in gold paint (to suggest gold-thread embroidery) and boughs of wisteria, in which the leaves are painted to suggest combined techniques of 'yuzen' dyeing, tie-dyed dots and more gold embroidery. Such bold, all-over designs in mixed techniques were typical on kimonos of the Genroku era (1688-1704) and shortly after. The woman carries a summer fan ('uchiwa') painted with a seasonal design of vine leaves.

The figure is large and ample, but the outlines of the kimono are not as heavily modulated as they became in the paintings of Ando's pupils. The sensuousness of the thick skein of hair that hangs heavily over the courtesan's shoulder is echoed by the long, trailing curve of the transparent netting. A very similar painting to the present, but with the composition reversed and the woman looking down at a kitten, is illustrated in Kuwabara 1911, no. 39; and a third work on a similar theme, with the courtesan emerging from the mosquito net and reading a love-letter, is illustrated in Ota 1985, no. 21.

The painting has been trimmed by several centimetres at the bottom, losing the seal beneath the signature.

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