Client at a Teahouse Standing by a Cistern

A forlorn man stands at the edge of a veranda, looking down at a torn and discarded letter at his feet. He holds the ladle of a water basin. A plant behind the basin seems to lean over in sympathy. A viewer at the time would have grasped the situation immediately: he is at a brothel, and has been turned away from the courtesan he loves due to lack of funds. His loneliness is magnified by images of indoor revelers, their silhouettes seen in shadows on the paper screen behind him.

The print is an example of Harunobu’s mastery of the difficult pillar print format. It also reflects the artist’s love for complex, multilayered subjects. This is a “parody print” (mitate-e 見立絵), and here the reference is to the legend Mugen no Kane 無限の鐘 about a magical temple bell that, when struck, will rain treasures on the bell-ringer but cast them into the eighth, most terrible, Buddhist hell in their next life. The man holds the ladle as if dreaming that the basin is the famous bell. The yellow flowers suggest the falling gold.