Exploitation and Culture: Heaven and Hell in the Yoshiwara Pleasure Quarters

A poster advertising the Yoshiwara exhibition at the University Art Museum.

At left, Chōbunsai Eishi, Yatsushi rokkasen (A Casual Selection of Six Flowers) ca. 1796–98 (© The Trustees of the British Museum); at right, one of a series of pictures depicting the seven great oiran courtesans of the Yoshiwara pleasure quarters by Keisai Eisen, ca. 1818–30. (Courtesy Hagi Uragami Museum, Yamaguchi Prefecture)

Kitagawa Utamaro, Nōryō bijinzu (A Beauty Enjoying the Cool), ca. 1794–95. (Courtesy Chiba City Museum of Art)

Utagawa Kunisada, Seirō yūkaku shōka no zu (Picture of the Upper Floor of a Brothel), 1813. (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

Kitagawa Utamaro, Yoshiwara no hana (Cherry Blossoms at Yoshiwara), ca. 1793. (Courtesy Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art)

At left, Takahashi Yuichi, Oiran (Grand Courtesan), 1872, (Courtesy Tokyo University of the Arts); the ukiyo-e print on the right by Ochiai Yoshiiku is a depiction of the same woman, and dates from just three years earlier. (Courtesy Hagi Uragami Museum, Yamaguchi Prefecture)