Chozan of the Chojiya, from the series "Models for Fashion: New Designs as Fresh as Young Leaves (Hinagata wakana hatsu moyo)"

Isoda Koryusai's portrait of Chozan, a courtesan of the Chojiya, belongs to Models for Fashion: New Designs as Fresh as Young Leaves (Hinagata wakana hatsu moyo), the long-running series that defined Edo bijin-ga in the 1770s. The Art Institute of Chicago dates this impression to 1771 in its catalogue entry (artwork 28270) and preserves the attribution to Koryusai and the house identification of the Chojiya, one of the most celebrated establishments in the Yoshiwara. The full-length composition shows Chozan standing alone against a blank ground, a format that Koryusai refined into the standard template for Hinagata Wakana. By eliminating background detail, the designer concentrates attention on the layered robes, the heavy outer over-kimono, the broad obi tied in front, and the projecting forest of hairpins that signaled rank within the quarter. The textile patterns visible here, including bold floral roundels and contrasting geometric grounds, function as the substance of the print, since the series operated as a working catalogue of seasonal designs adopted by leading courtesans. Chozan's name and her affiliation with the Chojiya would have been instantly legible to Edo-period buyers, who used Hinagata Wakana sheets to track the rivalries among houses and the rise of new high-ranking women. The print is a representative example of how Koryusai industrialized the bijin-ga format while preserving the genre's documentary specificity, naming both the woman and the house in the title cartouche.