page_title: Utamaro's pictures of abalone divers
section_title: Awabi-tori (c. 1797–98)
hierarchical_section_title: Utamaro's pictures of abalone divers / Awabi-tori (c. 1797–98)
caption_attribution_description: English: Two White Abalones (Haliotus sorenseni) Photographed and uploaded by user:Geographer
context_page_description: The Japanese ukiyo-e artist Kitagawa Utamaro made a number of prints depicting ama divers—women whose work is to dive for shellfish or pearls—catching haliotis abalone sea snails.
  Amongst the prints are the first print in the erotic book Utamakura; two triptychs called Awabi-tori, one from c. 1788–90 and the other from c. 1797–98; and the hexaptych Enoshima Yūryō Awabi-tori no Zu of c. 1804–06. Utamaro's heir Utamaro II published the triptych Enoshima Awabi-ryō no Zu in the early 19th century, signed Utamaro.
context_section_description: The three prints make up a triptych when placed together.  The prints are nishiki-e "brocade prints"—multicolour woodblock prints made with pigments on hand-made washi paper.  They are in ōban size, each about 38 by 25 centimetres (15 in × 10 in).  They were published c. 1797–98.  Each sheet is signed Utamaro hitsu (哥麿筆, "the brush of Utamaro").  The publisher is unknown, and there is no censor's seal, which has raised speculation as to how acceptable what the picture depicts was at the time.
  Utamaro depicts a group of nude ama divers finishing a day of diving for haliotis abalone sea snails.  He draws them naturalistically, without elongation or other distortions that ukiyo-e artists typically employed to present ideal models of beauty.  They are tall with white skin and long, stringy black hair that is wet and dangles from them.  They appear soft-skinned and the contours of their exposed upper bodies have reddish outlines, emphasizing their strong, corporeal figures at physical labour.  The scenery is made up of light greens and other pale colours, which contrast with the red clothes several of the figures wear.
  In the left print, a nude woman with a red waistcloth wrapped around her lower body crouches, supporting herself with her hands on the ground behind her and lowering one leg in the water.  A woman standing beside her points towards the water; she is lightly sunburned.  A woman in patterned blue in the central print combs her wet hair while breastfeeding a naked child; Utamaro often depicted women breastfeeding.  In the right print a woman wrings the end of a red waistcloth tied around her waist while holding in her mouth a knife used for opening shells.  She looks behind herself to the viewer's right, where a crouched woman selects shellfish from a basket to buy.
  A kyōka poem appears on the right print that reads:
  取得たる鮑のわたに引きかえて 海士のはたへは目の毒そかし
  Shutokutaru awabi no wata ni hikikaete ama no hada e wa me no doku sokashi
  More tempting than the flesh of the abalone is the skin of the diver
  Goncourt considered the prints "images of a very high style, and they have a charm which is arresting, surprising, even astonishing".
caption: Haliotis abalone
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