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The Influence of Utamaro's Portraits
on Cassatt's Lost Mural
(Excerpt from Elliot Bostwick Davis' article)

"The central panel of Cassatt's triptych format (a familiar device of ukiyo-e prints) echoes Utamaro's Persimmon Gatherers (Pl. XI), a tripartite print with a single background. In both pictures there are four women in the center and three on either side. The redheaded model of the color prints appears in the mural as a modern Eve plucking fruit from a tree in the Garden of Eden. The persimmon tones that unify Utamaro's composition are reflected in the brilliant orange colors that punctuated the central panel of the mural and the hair of Cassatt's model (see Pl. XV). The same tonality is found in the brick wall and floral dress of the woman holding the baby in Cassatt's Gathering Fruit (Pl. XlV), in which the decorative pattern of Utamaro's thatched gate is reinterpreted as an espaliered pear tree and vine.

The right-hand lunette of Modern Woman included three women representing the arts. dancing and playing a banjo. They recalled Utamaro's scenes of Japanese women playing the three-stringed samisen (see Pl. XII),(21) which closely resembles an American banjo. By the 1760s the samisen was associated with the narrative music for the Kabuki theater and later was used for the hybrid of theatrical and lyrical music played in the brothel district of Yoshiwara, represented in prints by Utamaro.(22)" (Read more on this topic here.)

Kitagawa Utamaro (Japanese, 1753-1806)
Geisha with Samisen, from the series Daughters of Edo Who Chant Drama, c. 1805
Color woodblock print

Japanese Prints Links:

Kitagawa Utamaro--short biography and several images
Images: Woman with Mirror; Courtezan with Writing Paper; Geisha with Samisen
Tryptichs: Women Preparing Fabrics and Leave of the Beauty before Driving
The Influences of Japanese Prints upon Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century French Art--teaching unit that provides a helpful overview/history of Japanese printmakers and their influence on Cassatt.

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