Tamatsushima, from the series "Three Fashionable Young Women (Furyu waka no sannin)"

From the series "Three Fashionable Young Women (Furyu waka no sannin)," this Art Institute of Chicago oban, dated c. 1811/13, identifies its figure with Tamatsushima — the name of a sacred site on Wakanoura Bay in Kii Province associated with Sotoorihime, one of the three goddesses of waka poetry. The series sets three contemporary bijin alongside three classical figures or place-names, allowing Eizan to recast the literary trio as living Edo women. Tamatsushima Shrine had been a poetic destination since the Heian period, and Eizan's invocation of it places his sitter in a lineage of female poetic authority. Within his broader output the print is a clear example of mitate methodology — the modern woman as a sly counterpart to a classical archetype — and a reminder of the educated audience the Kikukawa-school designs were aimed at.