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Five pictures at Low Tide, number 5

Artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Japanese, 1797–1861)
Title Five pictures at Low Tide, number 5 (Shiohi goban no uchi)
Series Gathering the Bounty of the Sea at Ebb Tide
Date 1828–ca. 1830
Medium Color woodblock print on paper
Dimensions Overall: 7 x 8 1/2 in. (17.8 x 21.6 cm)
Credit Line Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Accession Number 68.45

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About this Work

This is the first of a set of five prints showing an elegantly dressed woman fishing at low tide. The poems on this print, which contain many puns, seem to identify the woman as a courtesan from the pleasure quarter named Sodegaura, a play on the word Sodenoura (Sleeve Bay), which would explain her unsuitable dress for fishing.

Poems:

At the warbler-winged bay in Haneda
They gather treasures
From the sea at low tide
Here a cry of “sun-moon” shells
And there a starry flatfish
—Issekitei Senkin

Before we can cook
Our bounty of the low tide
It brushes gently across
The abalone on the rocky shore
The “sleeve bay” breeze
—Hisakataya


Provenance research is ongoing for this and many other items in the Eskenazi Museum of Art permanent collection. For more information about the provenance of this artwork, please contact the department curator with specific questions.

Series Title Gathering the Bounty of the Sea at Ebb Tide

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"Five pictures at Low Tide, number 5 | Collections Online." Collections Online. Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University, 2025. https://artmuseum.indiana.edu/collections-online/browse/object.php?number=68.45