Hiroshige here presents the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters on the single busiest day of the year. However, from the second story of a brothel, the noise and activity seems far away. In the distance, crossing the Asakusa Ricefields, is a procession celebrating the Torinomachi Festival. On this day, the Yoshiwara was open to everyone, including ordinary women. It was also a monbi, one of the special days on which each courtesan was required by tradition to take a customer—or to pay the fee to the brothel owner if she failed. Casually arranged in the foreground are a courtesan’s accouterments. Peeping out from behind the border of a screen are tissue papers delicately known as “paper for the honorable act.”
Utagawa Hiroshige (Japanese, 1797–1858). Asakusa Ricefields and Torinomachi Festival, No. 101 from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 11th month of 1857. Woodblock print, Sheet: 14 3/16 x 9 1/4 in. (36 x 23.5 cm) Image: 13 3/8 x 8 3/4 in. (34 x 22.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Anna Ferris, 30.1478.101. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
The scan is of far higher resolution, and the colours are more vibrant - I assume, reflecting the original colours, rather than the more washed-out version I posted originally.
So I assume(d), perhaps mistakenly. The source on Wikimedia Commons isn’t unknown, it is from the Library of Congress, as stated in the “Source” field. However, below the LoC link, the page says it’s a “restoration” by a Commons editor, god knows according to which standards. The original LoC page has a more washed-out version, colours seemingly the same as the Brooklyn Museum version, but also of a far better resolution which was the basis for the Commons version (5615 x 8400 pixels). It’s at https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/jpd.02940
You’re also right that the colours are a bit misaligned here and there in the LoC/Commons version, even the cat is coloured a bit differently. I paid no attention to that.
That library of Congress page doesn’t really have any information about the provenance of the print in their collection either. My main point was that you’ve posted not just 2 different scans of a single work but that the 2 are scans of completely different printings.
I understand. Being a layman I didn’t really pay attention to that, as I said, so I’m thankful for the correction.
According to LoC, it is a part of their collection “Visual materials from Donald D. Walker collection”. Although I’m not sure if that’s sufficiently precise - hopefully they have more info on the provenance elsewhere (I would expect the LoC to be pretty on point with that sort of stuff…).