Three Types Women Linked to Musical Instruments — 浮世美人見立三曲

Three Types Women Linked to Musical Instruments (Ukiyo bijin mitate sankyoku) is a Keisai Eisen sheet (or sheets) built on a classical mitate: the three instruments of the sankyoku ensemble - shamisen, koto and kokyu - are assigned to three contemporary urban women, each in costume and posture appropriate to the instrument she stands for. The conceit reaches back into the literary tradition (the original three instruments are sometimes the bow, brush and sword) and was a stock device of [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga), allowing the designer to compose a small portrait gallery united by a single theme. Eisen's figures are built with the mannerisms that anchor his mature Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e): elongated necks, small heads, heavily drawn outer kimono and the saturated palette of indigo and vermillion that defined the Bunsei and Tenpo eras. The sankyoku reference also points to the elevated social register of the music itself: shamisen and koto were the instruments of accomplished geisha and of well-educated daughters of merchant and samurai households, and the koto in particular carried strong connotations of refinement. The sheet is preserved in the ukiyo-e.org archive (Eisen Keisai, No Series, Three Types Women Linked to Musical Instruments). It is a representative example of the way Eisen used classical mitate structures to organise his ongoing project of cataloguing the female social types of late-Edo Japan.