Shadow and Grace – Memories of the Floating World

Drawing on the rich collections of museums in the Centre-Val de Loire region, the Hôtel Cabu is launching the regional Asian cultural season, which is set to run until 2027. For this occasion, the institutions of the Musées en Centre-Val de Loire network are collaborating to showcase their Chinese and Japanese collections: the museums of Orléans are presenting, for the first time since 1901, a series by Utagawa Kuniyoshi, unique in France! The exhibition Shadow and Grace: Memories of the Floating World is an immersion in Edo-period Japan (1603-1868) and focuses on questioning female representations in theukiyo-eThe Shadow and the Grace traces the stylistic and technical exchanges between Europe and Japan up to the 19th century.^e century. The exhibition explores the urban culture of the Edo period (1603-1868). The female figure is central to the ukiyo-e (Images of the Floating World). These works emphasize the ephemeral nature of the world's beauty. Prints played a crucial role in disseminating these idealized images both in the archipelago and in France during the second half of the 19th century.^e century. While this idealized image was for a long time the only one retained in Europe, the reality of life in the pleasure quarter was much darker.