From a series of three known designs on the subject of the Yoshiwara Niwaka festival which was held in the Yoshiwara every year in the eighth lunar month. Research comparing the names on the prints with Yoshiwara saiken guides confirms that they relate to the Niwaka festival of 1783 (see See Shugo Asano and Timothy Clark, The Passionate Art of Kitagawa Utamaro, (London, 1995), nos. 30 and 31, p. 89). The three prints all depict kamuro, the child servants to the courtesans. The present lot depicts two kamuro of the Ohishiya brothel dancing with fans and gohei banners in front of a wood fence. Although the names of three kamuro are stated on the print (Sasano, Kinshi and Hideno), only two are shown dancing.

The collects ion of Henri Vever 

Henri Vever (1854-1942) was regarded as one of the most distinguished jewellers of his t.mes . By the 1880s, Vever was amongst the earliest Europeans to formally collects Japanese prints. He bought extensively from Hayashi Tadamasa (1853-1906) and was a member of Les Amis de l’Art Japonais, a clique of art enthusiasts, including Claude Monet (1840-1926), who met regularly to discuss Japanese works of art. In the early 20th century, Vever had already amassed a vast collects ion of fine prints numbering in the thousands. His collects ion became a focal point for scholars such as von Seidlitz, Migeon, and Lemoisne, who almost exclusively used his collects ion for their research. During his lifet.mes , Vever made several important bequests to French national collects ions. At the peak of World War I, Vever sold much of his collects ion to Matsukata Kojiro (1865-1950), which would later go on to form a significant part of the Tokyo National Museum’s collects ion of ukiyo-e prints.