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

Tamazusa of Iedaya by Isoda Koryusai is a plate from the celebrated series Hinagata Wakana Hatsu Moyo, Models for Fashion: New Designs as Fresh as Young Leaves, in which leading courtesans of the Yoshiwara appear as living models for the most current patterned textiles. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves the impression that documents this design, recording the date as 1771, the year in which the long series began appearing under Koryusai's name. Tamazusa, a senior courtesan of the Iedaya house, is shown here in a procession-ready ensemble whose outer kimono carries an elaborate seasonal motif, surrounded by the small attendants and accoutrements that established her rank within the quarter. The series Hinagata Wakana Hatsu Moyo is Koryusai's most ambitious contribution to Edo bijin-ga: across nearly a hundred plates issued over several years, it functioned simultaneously as a portrait gallery of named Yoshiwara stars, a season-by-season catalogue of fashionable patterns, and a marketing instrument for the Yoshiwara houses and the textile workshops that supplied them. The plates redefined how courtesan portraiture worked in ukiyo-e by binding the identity of the individual woman to the specific textile she wore, and they helped establish Koryusai as Suzuki Harunobu's true successor in the bijin-ga genre. For collectors today, every surviving Hinagata Wakana plate is a record of a specific Yoshiwara fashion moment.