Tetsukuri no Tamagawa on the Musashino Plain

This triptych has an eye-catching composition featuring beautiful women. Two figures in dark kimonos with kasuri patterns are particularly striking. The subject matter of Six Jewel Rivers, known as Mu-Tamagawa, was inspired by classical waka poems and became popular in the pictorial tradition during the Edo period. The depiction of one of the Six Jewel Rivers, Tetsukuri no Tamagawa in Chōfu, west of Tokyo, usually includes the beating, rinsing, and drying of clothes. In Toyokuni's print, six women are arranged in the foreground with a sense of lateral rhythmic movement.

Credit: The Francis Lathrop Collection, Purchase, Frederick C. Hewitt Fund, 1911