On Top and Beneath Ryōgoku Bridge

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On Top and Beneath Ryōgoku Bridge is a set of six color woodblock prints by Utamaro, made around 1795–96. The scenes show many people, mostly elegantly dressed women, enjoying outings on Ryōgoku Bridge over the Sumida River in Edo, now Tokyo. The whole set measures about 75 by 60 cm, making it the earliest ukiyo-e work this large. Ukiyo-e was a popular art form in Edo Japan, featuring courtesans, actors, and other aspects of the floating world. Color prints with many blocks, called nishiki-e, were common, and the genre often focused on bijin-ga—pictures of beauties in leisure. Utamaro became famous in the 1790s for large-headed portraits that captured individual features and moods, offering more varied and lifelike depictions than earlier styles.

Ryōgoku Bridge connected Musashi and Shimōsa provinces. The prints have no title on them; they were published around 1795–96 by Ōmiya Gonkurō, whose seal appears on each print, and each print bears Utamaro’s signature. Copies of the set are held by several major museums, including the British Museum, the Guimet Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Tokyo National Museum.

The six prints form two rows of three. Each is an ōban size sheet, about 25 by 30 cm, and was designed so that a single print could also be viewed alone. The scene faces downstream, with boathouses along the river. On the bridge, nine tall, fashionable women stand or lean, some with hand fans or parasols, suggesting a hot day. The figures come from different social ranks, and some appear to be geisha. In the upper left are women-in-waiting wearing age-bōshi head-dresses. A woman holding a child stands in the center, and to the right is a group of entertainers. Behind the rightmost woman’s water-seller gear hints at scarce fresh water on reclaimed land. Under the bridge, various parties enjoy boating. A canopy boat hosts a drinking party in the center and right foreground. A geisha wearing a crested kimono crosses onto this boat from the far right. A pair of geisha on a small choki-bune at the far left seem about to join, shading themselves with an open parasol. Among the women are two handsome young men—one guiding the choki-bune to the left, the other lounging on a covered boat with a pipe in hand.