The empress and her ladies-in-waiting wear bonnets and dresses adapted from chromolithographs from European fashion magazines. In this and similar prints, if there is no caption, it is sometimes difficult to immediately distinguish who among the equally elegant female figures in satin and velvet is the empress. Usually, she may be identified by the imperial chrysanthemum or paulownia on her dress, or by a bonnet enlivened with red and white.
Credit: Gift of Lincoln Kirstein, 1959
July 1888
Polychrome woodblock print; ink and color on paper
37.5 x 71.8cm
JP3342
Image and text © Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019
Where you'll find this
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Permanent collection