Keisai Eisen (渓斎英泉) (artist 1790 – 1848)

Fuchū (府中): Sonohama (園浜) of the Owariya (尾張屋内) from the series A Tōkaidō Board Game of Courtesans: Fifty-three Pairings in the Yoshiwara (Keisei dōchū sugoroku/Mitate Yoshiwara gojūsan tsui [no uchi] - 契情道中双六 見立よしはら五十三対)

Print

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Date:1825
Dimensions:10.5 in x 15.5 in (Overall dimensions) Medium:Japanese woodblock print
Inscription:Signed: Keisai Eisen ga
渓斉英泉画
Publisher: Tsutaya Kichizō
(Marks 556 - 03-004)
Censor's seal: kiwame
Links Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Ishikawa Prefectural Museum of Art
Chiba City Museum
National Diet Library
Google maps - Yoshiwara Shrine - one of the only signs of where this famous district was
Metropolitan Museum of Art - a complete set in album form Description:Until recently - it is now late January 2024 - we did not realize the true significance of the title of this print series: A Tōkaidō Board Game of Courtesans: Fifty-three Pairings in the Yoshiwara or Keisei dōchū sugoroku/Mitate Yoshiwara gojūsan tsui [no uchi] .

In 2020 Mike Lyon purchased a complete set of Kunisada's Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsugi no uchi). We made much of this series' connection to the early 1830s series by Hiroshige based on the same theme. However, it wasn't until doing research on other items in the Lyon Collection that it occurred to us that Eisen had created his series, this one, about eight to ten or more years earlier, thus foreshadowing those created later by both Hiroshige and Kunisada.

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An oiran playing with her(?) child. They are both dressed for winter. The woman's kimono is covered with stylized turtles. The decoration on her hairpins may be a symbol of the house she works for. That floral motif is repeated twice on the child's robe. It also appears on the black lacquer box behind her and on the decoration of the blue and white sliding door above it. The butterflies and grasses shown on the screen below the shelf with the box may be an indication of warmer times to come.

The colors used in the oiran's robes are considerably different than those of the prints in Boston and Chiba. This could be due to the use of different inks or from fading.

There are 48 prints from this series in the National Diet Library.

This appears to be the only example out of the entire series showing a small child. Two others show young assistants to courtesans, but none, like this one, with an infant, possibly as young as two years old.

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Illustrated in color in 浮世絵師溪斎英泉, 千葉市美術館 (Keisai Eisen: Artist of the Floating World, Chiba City Museum, 2012, #236, p. 196.

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The original Tōkaidō was established by the Kamakura bakufu (1192-1333) to run from Kamakura to the imperial capital of Kyoto.
Related entities beautiful women (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)
Tsutaya Kichizō (蔦屋吉蔵) (publisher)
mitate-e (見立て絵) (genre)
boshi-e (母子絵) (genre)

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