KUNIYOSHI. Fashionable Living Dolls. A scene in a brothel. Diptych.

Brothel scene with a courtesan having her hair done and another with a pipe. The figure in front of a mirror is Mayuzumi, a Yoshiwara courtesan. Curious variant of a triptych with the same subject and the same title. This is one of the 185 prints of the series, Modern Select Dolls (Tôsei mitate ningyô no uchi) 1855-56. This group of prints illustrates carved groups of “dolls” displayed at Kannon Temple in Asakusa.  Although the word ningyô is usually translated as “dolls”, these lifelike dolls (iki-ningyô) were in fact extremely realistic life-sized clothed statues. The titles of the prints vary. Unless otherwise noted, the individual sheets are each about 14 by 10 inches (36 by 25 centimeters), a size known as ôban, and were intended to be placed side-by-side to form diptychs and triptychs. In the triptych there is, in the sheet on the left, a seated man man with pox on his face.

Utagawa Kuniyoshi  was one of the last great masters of the Japanese ukiyo-e style of woodblock prints and painting. He was a member of the Utagawa school.