Japanese Restaurant Yunomi with Utamaro Beauty Print

A tall, straight-sided yunomi (Japanese teacup) in a soft cream glaze, printed with a classic ukiyo-e portrait of an Edo-period beauty. She has an elaborate black chignon pinned with long golden kanzashi hairpins, wears a peach-and-coral patterned kimono, and holds a book with a red title slip. The picture is signed 歌麿筆 ("painted by Utamaro"), so it is a reproduction of a work by the woodblock master Kitagawa Utamaro. On the other side, bold black text reads 割烹 仕出し 魚六 ("Kappō · Catering · Uoroku"), with a crest and a telephone number. That tells us it was made as a gift or house cup for a Japanese restaurant called Uoroku. It's a lovely size for green tea. The print is bright and clean.

Utamaro (c. 1753–1806) is the artist most associated with pictures of beautiful women. He made his name with bijin ōkubi-e, "large-head" close-up portraits that showed women's faces and expressions in a new, intimate way. On the restaurant side, kappō combines characters meaning "to cut" and "to cook", and it describes a style of Japanese dining where the chef prepares dishes in front of you. Shidashi means meals delivered to homes and events, so Uoroku did both.