Beauties Parodying the Seven Sages - A Selection of Younger Courtesans (Shichi kenjin yatsushi bijin shinzo zoroe): Miyagawa of the Matsubaya

Miyagawa of the Matsubaya, from Beauties Parodying the Seven Sages: A Selection of Younger Courtesans (Shichi kenjin yatsushi bijin shinzo zoroe), is held by the Art Institute of Chicago (reference 101153_526612). The shinzo is a member of the Matsubaya, one of the most famous Yoshiwara houses, and Chobunsai Eishi (1756-1829) was a particularly attentive observer of that establishment, whose top-ranking courtesans appear repeatedly in his print designs. As with the rest of the series, the print stages a mitate in which the Chinese Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove are recast as Edo apprentice courtesans, allowing the buyer to enjoy the learned reference and the contemporary portrait simultaneously. Miyagawa stands in Eishi's signature mode: tall and slender, her body slightly turned, her eyes lowered. The visual interest lies in the kimono patterning and the precise drawing of the obi, both treated as a flattened decorative surface. The image's restraint is consistent with the Kano-trained [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) idiom Eishi developed after departing the Kano studio of Eisen-in Michinobu and entering the world of Edo printmaking under the patronage of major publishers. The face is reduced to a few clean strokes, in line with his preference for the courtly type. The Art Institute holds the sheet in good condition, with cartouche and signature legible, and the image circulates widely in catalogues of late-eighteenth-century [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) because it represents the meeting point of literary mitate and Yoshiwara portraiture that defined Eishi's mature work.