Mandayu of the Nakaomiya

This second print from the Models for Fashion series offers an indoor view of three beauties at New Year’s. A courtesan identified as Mandayū of the Nakaōmiya relaxes with one elbow resting on stacked go and shōgi boards. Tobacco pipe in one hand, she looks on as two kamuro play sugoroku, a game similar to backgammon, against the backdrop of a folding screen decorated with bush clover and butterflies. The kamuro wear festive New Year’s garb, with pine bough–shaped accessories in their hair and snow-covered pines decorating their furisode. The near figure is shown from behind, providing details of her elaborate hairstyle and showing off her fashionably tied obi. Mandayū herself is resplendent in a crane-patterned outer robe, stylish vertical striped obi, and an inner robe patterned with a hexagonal diaper pattern filled with spiders, in pink on white. In an intimate gesture common to other depictions of courtesans, she draws one hand up to her chin from within the folds of her innermost garment.