Lion Dance: Oito of the Tamaya

This print is part of a series of at least five that depict female geisha dressed in the dynamic costumes worn for the Niwaka Kyōgen performances held in the Yoshiwara each year during the eighth month. The geisha in this case is identified as Tamaya Oito. Shown in full regalia for her role in a Lion Dance, she wears a fringed apron with a threatening spider web motif and a black robe with couched gold thread over an underrobe with a black cut-velvet collar and design of a carp swimming upstream. Instead of dancing, she is shown during a moment of leisure casually drinking sake at a teahouse called Minatoya. The peony lantern by her side is inscribed with her name, Ito. Two kamuro attendants in elaborate floral headdresses excitedly exclaim over her costume as the teahouse’s proprietress—smoking a long pipe—looks on. Scholars have suggested that this series was published by Tsutaya Jūzaburō to commemorate the establishment of his business in Toriaburamachi in 1783.