The Courtesan Somenosuke of the Matsubaya

Isoda Koryusai produced this portrait of Somenosuke, a courtesan of the Matsubaya, around 1771, an attribution preserved by the Art Institute of Chicago under accession 23318. The Matsubaya was one of the most prestigious brothels of the Yoshiwara, and named portraits of its leading women circulated widely in Edo as both luxury prints and as a kind of branded publicity. Koryusai presents Somenosuke in the full-length standing format that he had refined into the dominant convention of Edo bijin-ga during the early 1770s, immediately preceding the launch of his Hinagata Wakana series. The figure rises against an unmodeled ground, her body angled to display the layered collars of her robes and the heavy outer over-kimono. The obi is tied prominently in front, a costume signal that the museum's labeling system and broader scholarship use to mark her as a courtesan rather than a townswoman. Koryusai's drawing emphasizes the play of textile patterns across the entire figure, contrasting dense ornament on the outer robe with quieter grounds beneath. The face, rendered with the small mouth and elongated oval associated with the period, sits beneath an arrangement of hairpins arrayed in the configuration reserved for high-ranking women of the quarter. The print belongs to the broader project that culminated in Hinagata Wakana, in which Koryusai used named portraits like this one to document the social hierarchy of the Yoshiwara house by house and woman by woman.