Woman After a Bath, from "Comparison of Alluring Beauties (Irokurabe enpu sugata)" c. 1781

This woodblock print, "Woman After a Bath," was created by Torii Kiyonaga in Japan. It is part of a series called "Comparison of Alluring Beauties." The image presents a candid scene of women in a bathhouse. We see a woman drying herself after bathing, and in the background, another woman is still in the tub. A small dog, a fashionable accessory, stands in the foreground. Kiyonaga was a leading artist of ukiyo-e prints, a genre that captured the fleeting pleasures of urban life. These prints, sold to a wide audience, offered a window into the fashions, trends, and social customs of Edo-period Japan. This work provides insights into the social dynamics of the bathhouse, a public space where people from different classes mingled. Bathhouses were sites of gossip, relaxation, and social display. The print reflects a culture that valued cleanliness and beauty, but also hints at the voyeuristic gaze. To understand the print further, we can look at diaries, social commentaries, and other visual sources from the period to reveal the complex interplay of gender, class, and social life in Edo Japan.