The Courtesan Kichijuro of Kage Manjiya with Two Kamuro (from the series Models for Fashions: New Designs as Fresh as Young Leaves)

This 1775 oban nishiki-e by Isoda Koryusai depicts the courtesan Kichijuro of the Kage Manjiya house attended by two kamuro, her young child apprentices, in a print issued as part of the long-running series "Hinagata wakana no hatsu moyo," rendered in English as "Models for Fashions: New Designs as Fresh as Young Leaves." The series, published by Nishimuraya Yohachi between roughly 1776 and 1781, set the standard for late eighteenth-century Edo ukiyo-e bijin-ga and ran to more than one hundred sheets, each documenting the seasonal patterns then in vogue among the highest-ranking women of the Yoshiwara. Koryusai presents Kichijuro at full standing height, her elaborate uchikake sweeping in a continuous diagonal across the sheet, the surrounding kamuro repeating the principal motifs of her robe in their own smaller garments so that the trio reads as a coordinated advertisement for a single workshop's textile output. The artist's position as Harunobu successor is felt in the lyrical handling of pose and face, while the firm, fully scaled figures look forward to the work of Torii Kiyonaga. The Cleveland Museum of Art impression retains the soft pink, mustard, indigo, and olive palette characteristic of Koryusai's mature decade and the precise key-block linework executed for the publisher. Within the broader output of Edo ukiyo-e, this sheet exemplifies the meeting point between commercial fashion plate and refined bijin-ga portraiture for which Koryusai is now principally remembered.