Edo meisho hyakunin bijo (One hundred beauties of famous places in Edo)

This is a bijin-ga series by the late-Edo ukiyo-e artist UTAGAWA Kunisada (Toyokuni III). In each large-format nishiki-e print, Kunisada depicts a beauty in the center, while his pupil, UTAGAWA Kunihisa, portrays a famous place in Edo within a square frame in the composition. Produced in 1857–1858 (Ansei 4–5). Although billed as "one hundred," 101 prints have been identified for the series as a whole; the set here comprises eighty-one prints, lacking titles such as "Kagurazaka" and "Surugadai." The series depicts women from all walks of life—from Yoshiwara courtesans to daughters of daimyo households in Kasumigaseki—and offers an intriguing window into women's fashions and customs of the time. It also includes sensuous scenes, such as a woman loosening her clothing to wash her hair ("Imagawa-bashi") and a woman washing her face with a rice-bran bag ("Gotenyama").