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Japan: A view of a brothel in Yoshiwara, Edo, 1680. Hishikawa Moronobu (1618 – 1694)

Japan: A view of a brothel in Yoshiwara, Edo, 1680. Hishikawa Moronobu (1618 – 1694)

Hishikawa Moronobu (菱川 師宣, 1618 – July 25, 1694) was a Japanese painter and printmaker known for his advancement of the ukiyo-e woodcut style starting in the 1670s.

Moronobu was the son of a well-respected dyer and a gold and silver-thread brocade artisan in the village of Hodamura, Awa Province, near Edo Bay in present-day Kyonan, Chiba Prefecture. After moving to Edo, Moronobu, who had learned his father's craft, studied both Tosa and Kanō-style painting. He thus had a solid grounding in both decorative crafts and academic painting, which served him well when he then turned to ukiyo-e.

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