Beauties of the Pleasure Quarters (Seiro bijin awase): the Hostess of the Izumiya Teahouse

The Hostess of the Izumiya Teahouse, from the series Beauties of the Pleasure Quarters (Seirō bijin awase), is an oban-tate (vertical large-format) color woodblock print by Rekisentei Eiri of the mid-1790s. The Seirō bijin awase series follows the format that Chōbunsai Eishi and his pupils developed for their celebrity-courtesan prints: a standing beauty in three-quarter view against a plain ground, accompanied by a kyōka verse in the upper register identifying her by name and house. Here the subject is not a courtesan but the proprietress of the Izumiya, one of the licensed teahouses (chaya) of the Yoshiwara that mediated between visitors and the brothel houses. The choice of a teahouse hostess as the subject of a bijin portrait is characteristic of Eiri's interest in the wider social geography of the licensed quarter beyond its most famous courtesans. The figure is rendered in the Chōbunsai school's signature attenuated proportions — long neck, narrow oval face, kimono falling in long vertical pleats — and the palette is hushed, with pale plums and muted ivory tones predominating. The print exemplifies Eiri's careful, slightly mannerist refinement and his sustained dialogue with the parallel series his teacher and fellow pupils were producing in these same years. Impressions are held by the Art Institute of Chicago.