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Tanabata Festival

Tanabata Festival

(Japanese, active about 1696–1716)
(Japanese)
about 1718 (Kyôhô 3)
Medium/TechniqueWoodblock print (beni-e); ink on paper, with hand-applied color
DimensionsHosoban; 21.5 x 30.2 cm (8 7/16 x 11 7/8 in.)
Credit LineDenman Waldo Ross Collection
Accession number06.1322.3
On View
Not on view
ClassificationsPrints
Description
A Yoshiwara courtesan and her young lover are preparing decorations for the Tanabata festival on the seventh day of the seventh month. A playful kamuro (child attendant of a courtesan) has arranged two bamboo stalks in the shape of a boat, which she pretends to row along the River of Heaven (the Milky Way). The festival commemorates the annual meeting of two heavenly lovers who are separated by the river and allowed to come together just once each year.
ProvenanceMarch 8, 1906, gift of Denman Waldo Ross