Courtesans of the Yoshiwara, from an Album of Their Verse and Calligraphy

A full-color spread from a luxury album devoted to the leading courtesans of the Yoshiwara. In a well-appointed interior, women arrange themselves around a low table and a lacquer cabinet, attended by young kamuro, while their own poems, reproduced from their handwriting, fill the space above. Kyōden, working as Kitao Masanobu, designed the whole book as a showcase, matching each celebrated woman to her verse and her hand. The color printing is dense and costly, gold on the robes, careful patterning throughout. What looks like a portrait book is also a piece of publicity, sold to admirers who knew these names. Across the gutter the composition runs unbroken, one wide scene folded into a book.