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Eishō

Act. c. 1795–1801

Art names: Chōkōsai (c.1795–97), Shōeidō (c.1795–96).

Eishō is considered as the most important student of Eishi. Nothing is known about his life other than his oeuvre. Active from the mid 1790s, he was the most prolific amongst Eishi’s students, showing a distinctive personal style. It can be assumed that Eishō was already in his twenties at the time when he produced his first prints because these early prints show no characteristics of a young artist in training.

Eishō specialized in beautiful women who he often portrayed in the large-head format. He designed at least twenty series for fourteen publishers, the majority of them issued by Yamaguchiya Chūsuke who had found in Eishō his answer to successful large-head beauty series by Utamaro produced by the publishers Nishimuraya Yohachi and Tsutaya Jūzaburō. Together wiTheiri and Eiu, fellow students of Eishi, Eishō contributed designs to the series “Contest of Beauties of the Pleasure Quarters” (Kakuchū bijin kurabe), published c.1795–97. Twenty-four different beauties are known and with twenty Eishō was the main contributor. For whatever reason, Eishō seems to have stopped designing prints simultaneously with his teacher Eishi.

A few books with illustrations by Eishō appeared between 1798 and 1801, some of them wiTherotic content. Unlike his teacher Eishi, only a small number of paintings by Eishō survive. One of them, a handscroll, is inscribed to be after a picture that Eishi painted as an old man. This would suggest that Eishō was still somewhat active in the 1810s/20s during Eishi’s later years.

c.1795–96 “The courtesan Tsurunoo of the Tsuraya” (Tsuruya uchi Tsurunoo), from the series “Comparison of Beauties from the Green Houses” (Seirō bijin awase). ōban. Publisher: Yamaguchiya Chūsuke. Library of Congress. Series listed in Brandt 1977, cat. A 38-40, but not this design.

c.1796–98 Two geisha with hobby-horses as Niwaka Manzai. ōban. Publisher: Uemura Chō. National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden, The Netherlands. Brandt 1977, cat. A 101.

c.1795–97 The courtesan Shinowara of the Asahimaruya, from the series “Contest of Beauties of the Pleasure Quarters” (Kakuchū bijin kurabe). ōban. Publisher: Yamaguchiya Chūsuke. Collection Peter Rieder. Variation of Brandt 1977, cat. A 5.