In search of Utamaro... in Brussels

I spent most of today at the Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire in Brussels, looking at more than five hundred Japanese woodblock prints by Kitagawa Utamaro. The museum houses approximately 6,550 Ukiyo-e prints and an additional one thousand book illustrations by various artists, including some remarkable Harunobu designs that have retained their glorious colours. I would have liked to see every single one of them, but I was on a mission to see the Utamaros, and I think that viewing more than seven and a half thousand prints would have taken a little longer than a day!


One of the things I’ve noticed, during my museum visits, is that a number of them house very similar groups of prints, when it comes to Utamaro at least. The collection in the Musées royaux d'art et d'histoire is very different, comprising numerous images otherwise ignored and very rarely, if ever, reproduced in books. I now have a very soft spot for the collection, as it reflects my personal taste in Utamaro’s prints, focusing on images of women and children and the more comical and characterful designs.


The prints are not on display, but if you’re in Brussels and have plenty of time, it’s well worth asking (in advance, of course) if you can view them. In fact, even if you’re not in Brussels, it’s worth making the effort to get there!


Recently, my husband bought this sheet (above) for me, from an untitled pentaptych, published by Murataya Jirobei around 1798. I was pleased to see the whole five-sheet composition today, depicting a procession of men, women and children beneath parasols on their way to a flower-viewing picnic.

There are collections of Japanese prints in museums all over the world, sometimes in the most unlikely of locations too. Reproductions in books are all very well, but if you're serious about studying woodblock prints you need to see them 'in the flesh'. If you make the effort, you never know what treasures you might unearth.