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

Tokiuta of the Chojiya, from Beauties Parodying the Seven Sages: A Selection of Younger Courtesans (Shichi kenjin yatsushi bijin shinzo zoroe), shows a shinzo of the Chojiya, one of the famous Yoshiwara houses, and is preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago (reference 101160_526658). The print is by Chobunsai Eishi (1756-1829), the Kano-trained ukiyo-e artist whose career bridged the official samurai-house tradition of painting and the commercial Edo print market. Eishi's idiom is on full display: Tokiuta stands tall and slender, her elongated body forming a single quiet vertical against a flat ground. Her kimono patterning carries most of the visual interest, with the small face and lowered eyes contributing to the calm, dignified atmosphere that distinguishes Eishi from contemporaries who emphasized facial expression or sensuous contour. Color is restrained, and impressions like this one in the Art Institute show the precise registration of the woodblocks, with key-block outline and color separations aligned cleanly. The series' parodic framing recasts the Chinese Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove as seven shinzo of named brothel houses, a mitate that depends on the educated viewer's ability to enjoy both layers simultaneously. As an Edo bijin-ga, the sheet exemplifies Eishi's approach to literary subjects: the joke is gentle, the allusion is precise, and the present-day portrait is treated with the dignity of a court painting. The Art Institute's impression preserves the artist's signature and the publisher's cartouche, and the museum's wider Eishi holdings provide additional context for the series.