Kisen Hoshi / Furyu Ryaku Rokkasen

Kisen Hoshi from Furyu Ryaku Rokkasen, recorded by the British Museum (object AN00521428) and indexed on [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).org, belongs to a popular Edo print genre that paired the six classical poets known as the rokkasen with contemporary Yoshiwara courtesans. The priest-poet Kisen, one of the original six selected by Ki no Tsurayuki in the early tenth century, lived as a recluse on Mount Uji and is remembered for a single waka famously incorporated into the Hyakunin Isshu. Mitate practice took these classical figures and matched them with current beauties, allowing viewers to read the print on two levels at once. Chobunsai Eishi was a leading designer of furyu and mitate sheets, in part because his Kano-trained ukiyo-e gave him the cultural fluency to handle classical literary material with appropriate decorum. His apprenticeship under Kano Eisen'in Michinobu and his service in attendance to the shogun Tokugawa Ieharu, both before he moved into commercial print design in the 1780s, equipped him for exactly this kind of double image. The print's elongated figures, restrained palette, and balanced composition are signatures of his [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) register. Specific publisher, censor seal, dating, and the identity of any pictured courtesan should be consulted directly in the British Museum record, which is the primary documentary anchor for the image. The sheet is a strong example of how literary culture and Yoshiwara culture intersected in Eishi's mature work.