Looking amused: the appearance of a high-ranking maid in the Bunsei era

The design comes from Fūzoku sanjūnisō (Thirty-Two Aspects of Customs and Manners, 1888), the [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) series in which Yoshitoshi pairs a single female figure with an emotional state given in the title — looking amused, looking weary, looking anxious — and locates her within a specific historical period of the preceding two centuries. This sheet sets its subject in the Bunsei era (1818–1830), a phase of late-Edo townspeople culture that the late-nineteenth-century viewer would have associated with a particular grammar of dress and coiffure. The figure is a high-ranking maid (jōrō) of a samurai household, identifiable by hair ornaments and the cut and layering of her kimono. The series is recognised within Yoshitoshi's late output for its restrained handling of expression and for its careful research into period-appropriate costume; the printing is unusually refined for the late 1880s, with delicate [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradation on high-quality [washi](/glossary/washi).