The Courtesan Hanaogi of the Ogiya and her attendant, from the series "Fans of the East (Azuma ogi)"

Isoda Koryusai's print of the courtesan Hanaogi of the Ogiya with her attendant, from the series Fans of the East (Azuma ogi), is held at the Art Institute of Chicago and dated 1772. The Ogiya, whose house crest was the folding fan, was among the most prestigious establishments of the Yoshiwara, and Hanaogi was one of the line of celebrity courtesans who carried that name across generations. Koryusai's series leans into the punning conceit of azuma ogi, the fans of the east, with each design framed as a fan-shape and devoted to a leading beauty of an Edo (azuma) pleasure house. The format demanded a flattening and concentration of the composition that suited his Edo bijin-ga style: two figures, the senior courtesan and her young attendant, locked together in graceful contrapposto, the textiles diagrammed with the patient fidelity of a draftsman who knew that this print would also function as a source for tailors and designers. That dual life of the print, simultaneously a portrait and a wearable-fashion reference, became the explicit organizing principle of Hinagata Wakana no Hatsumoyo a few years later, when Koryusai treated the courtesan body as armature for documenting kimono patterns in oban format. Trained in samurai-household painting traditions before turning to ukiyo-e under Suzuki Harunobu, Koryusai brought to Hanaogi's portrait a controlled outline and a discreet palette that distinguishes his work from the rougher contours of his contemporaries. The Art Institute records the impression as a fully developed nishiki-e of the early 1770s, with the series providing one of the clearest demonstrations of how Koryusai positioned Yoshiwara identity through a single concentrated emblem.