Viewing the parade down the main street, Nakanochô, in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter 1790

Kitagawa Utamaro made this woodblock print depicting a parade in the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter sometime before his death in 1806. Utamaro brings us a scene of commercial leisure in Japan under the Tokugawa shogunate. The women pictured are likely courtesans observing a parade from their residence. These houses were licensed by the government and heavily regulated, acting as a key institution for the regime’s management of social life. Note the elaborate hairstyles and clothing, signifiers of status within this highly stratified world. The Yoshiwara district itself was designed as a kind of stage, a place of display and performance, and prints like this one participated in that economy of representation, allowing viewers to vicariously participate in the spectacle of the pleasure quarter. To fully understand this print, scholars consult a range of sources: government records, maps, and even other artworks to reconstruct the complex social and institutional world of Edo-period Japan. This print reminds us that art is not just a matter of individual expression but is deeply embedded in broader social and economic structures.