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Courtesan
Back in ancient China, the Chinese monarchs would often pick their wives from various portraits of beautiful women. In Japan, they also hold the same practice of depicting both real and idealized beautiful women in paintings. Kikugawa Eizan was a famous painter and the leading designer of bijinga during his time. Bijinga is the Japanese art for beautiful women. In this painting, the female is dressed in a simple, casual attire, showing that she belongs to a lower rank. In the past, these types of paintings only featured high-ranking courtesans, but as time progressed, bijinga began depicting lower-ranked courtesans, fictional characters, geishas, and historic figures as well. The woman in the painting also has her leg shown from the slit of her kimono, which is to help attract men to the painting. Most of the women in these types of paintings are often shown as really pale and their hair tied up with ornaments.