Women Playing a Poetry-matching Card Game

Fully dressed in layers of robes that spill out behind her, hair carefully coiffed and held in place with tortoiseshell combs and battens, a courtesan of the highest rank (oiran) is passing the time with her full retinue, enjoying a card game known as “One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets” (Hyakunin isshu). The highest-ranking courtesans, who studied waka poetry and were educated in many of the traditional arts, were able to support a substantial retinue, seen here grouped in a circle around their mistress. The two girls in red are her young attendants (kamuro), who may someday become courtesans-in-training (shinzō) like the figure sitting at the left of the oiran, wearing a multi-patterned robe with dangling sleeves (furisode). The two women in brown robes with matching obi tied behind them are low-ranking courtesans (tomesode shinzō), while the woman behind them might be a servant to the oiran.