Artist of the week
Slender women, boats and lanterns
Chobunsai Eishi
Chōbunsai Eishi in Edo, in the 1790s, drawing tall, slender women on quiet grounds. Takigawa of the Ōgiya raises a hand to the long pins in her hair, and another woman, seen close, holds up a painted shell from the shell-matching game. Two women stand in slanting rain by a river, printed in black ink alone. Pleasure boats crowd the Sumida under the long grey legs of a bridge, and on a yellow ground hung with wisteria and red lanterns, a figure in black dances among the women.
As a puzzle
Start from the black hair, the red lanterns and the patterned robes, then the faces. The grounds are the slow part: plain tan behind Takigawa, soft yellow behind the shell and the lanterns, cream paper with lines of poems. The rain scene and Genji at Suma are grey all over, and the shell print has a white margin down one side. The wide, crowded boats on the Sumida take a high count; keep the single figures moderate.
A good size here: 50–200 pieces.
Also filed under Ukiyo-e
Subjects here: LandscapesRivers and LakesEveryday Life
7 pictures, pick one to build
The Willow Shell (Yanagi-kai), from an Untitled Set of Beauty Prints on the Theme of Shells ca. 1791 
Ono no Komachi Praying for Rain ca. 1791 
Pleasure Boats on the Sumida River beneath Shin-Ōhashi Bridge ca. 1792 
Takigawa of the Ōgiya Brothel: The First Reception Room Appointment of the New Year (Hatsu-uri zashiki no zu: Ōgiya Takigawa), from the series A Comparison of Selected Beauties of the Pleasure Quarters (Seirō bisen awase) ca. 1794–95 
Genji in Exile at Suma, from the series Genji in Fashionable Modern Guise (Fūryū yatsushi Genji: Suma) ca. 1791–92 
A Parody of Yuranosuke in the Pleasure Quarters ca. 1797 
Matching Shells (Kai-awase), “Kisen Hōshi,” from the series Modern Parodies of the Six Poetic Immortals (Yatsushi rokkasen: Kisen Hōshi) ca. 1796–98