The Courtesan Shizuka from Tamaya with Her Kamuro

The woman here is Shizuka, a high-ranking courtesan of the Tamaya house in the Yoshiwara, the walled pleasure district of Edo. Beside her are her kamuro, the young girls who attended an oiran of her rank and carried her trains and errands, and who, if they lasted, were groomed to become courtesans themselves one day. Prints like this sold as something between a fashion plate and a celebrity portrait, naming the house and the woman for buyers who followed the Yoshiwara's stars. The signature reads Utamaro, but the date is 1815, nine years after the famous Utamaro died. This is the work of the pupil who married the master's widow and kept using his name.