2-730-616 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Hanaogi of Ogiya from the series Picture Puzzles, c. 1797. Utamaro’s favorite subject matter was beautiful women. He often depicted them engaged in simple, everyday activities. Hanaogi was one of the most famous courtesans of the equally famous Ogiya geisha house in the Yoshiwara district of Edo (now Tokyo), popular during the 1790s. In this tricky print, one must decode the small pictures in the rectangle at the upper left corner to learn the identity of the subject of the print: a woman whose name means "Flower Fan," her place of work called the "House of Fans," and what she is doing—emerging from a mosquito net.