Misayama of the Chojiya, from the series Beauties of the Licensed Quarter (Kakuchu bijin kurabe)

An okubi-e portrait of Misayama, a leading courtesan of the Chōjiya brothel, from Eishō's series Beauties of the Licensed Quarter (Kakuchū bijin kurabe), this ōban sheet of circa 1795 in the Art Institute of Chicago is one of the prints on which his contemporary reputation rests. The series gave Eishō an explicit franchise: each design names a current Yoshiwara star and her house, fixing the image as a celebrity portrait in an era when prints of named courtesans functioned much as photographs of actors and singers do today. Misayama is shown bust-length against a plain ground, her hair piled in the lacquered shimada coiffure of a tayū, her kimono and obi rendered in flat, decorative pattern. The face is the print's center of gravity — Eishō's signature elongated oval, with the narrow eyes turned slightly off-axis to suggest interior attention.