1870
paint
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
An Unfortunate Tale, III is a 1870 paint by Kawanabe Kyōsai 河鍋暁斎, a Impressionism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
This scroll shows a woman kneeling on a tatami mat, her face hidden in her hands. Her dark robe pools around her. A single lamp glows behind her, casting long shadows. Kyosai painted this scene three times. Each version tells the same sad story. The woman’s pose stays nearly the same, but her grief feels deeper. Look up Kawanabe Kyosai.
The painting shows the third scene in a series illustrating a popular narrative, where a woman endures harassment from a group of children. An elderly man intervenes to reprimand the children, while a passerby observes the confrontation.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Kawanabe Kyōsai (河鍋 暁斎; May 18, 1831 – April 26, 1889) was a Japanese painter and caricaturist. In the words of art historian Timothy Clark, "an individualist and an independent, perhaps the last virtuoso in traditional Japanese painting".
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