Courtesans of the Chojiya, from the book "A Comparison of Beauties of the Green Houses: A Mirror of Their Forms (Seiro bijin awase sugata kagami)," vol. 1

This Katsukawa Shunsho design shows courtesans of the Chojiya, one of the great houses of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter, in a page from the celebrated picture book A Comparison of Beauties of the Green Houses: A Mirror of Their Forms (Seiro bijin awase sugata kagami). Published in three volumes around 1776, the book was a joint project of Shunsho and Kitao Shigemasa, presenting more than 160 named courtesans from the Yoshiwara's leading establishments. It is one of the most important Edo ukiyo-e ehon of the An'ei period, both as a luxurious example of colour-printed book illustration and as a documentary record of the women of the quarter and their seasonal pastimes. Although Shunsho is best known as a yakusha-e specialist and the founder of the Katsukawa school, Seiro bijin awase sugata kagami demonstrates that he was an equally accomplished designer of bijin-ga, capable of varying pose, costume and grouping across many pages without monotony. Each named courtesan is given an individualised treatment, paralleling on the page the school's commitment to individuated likeness in actor portraiture. This impression is preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago. It illustrates how Shunsho's practice and the Katsukawa school's reputation extended beyond the theatre district into the publishing programmes that promoted the Yoshiwara, the other great cultural arena of Edo townspeople.