Three Beauties of Our Time (Tosei san bijin)

Held by the Art Institute of Chicago, this ōban print of three contemporary beauties (Tōsei san bijin) places Eishō squarely within a popular subgenre of the 1790s that paired or grouped named celebrities of the day — sometimes courtesans, sometimes teahouse waitresses — for direct comparison by the print-buying public. Utamaro's contemporaneous Three Beauties of the Present Day (Tōji san bijin), featuring Tomimoto Toyohina, Naniwaya Kita, and Takashima Ohisa, is the most famous example of the type, and Eishō's design participates in that conversation. The three figures fill the picture plane in graceful overlap, their faces tilted at slightly different angles to allow each profile to register clearly. Eishō's handling of the heads is unmistakable: long ovals, narrow eyes, small mouths, an elegant downward sweep of the jaw line.