About: Hokkoku Goshiki-zumi

Hokkoku Goshiki-zumi (北国五色墨, "Five Shades of Ink in the Northern Quarter") is a series of five ukiyo-e prints designed by the Japanese artist Utamaro and published in c. 1794–95. The prints depict and contrast women who work in or near the exclusive pleasure district of Yoshiwara in the administrative capital of Edo (modern Tokyo). They range from the highest ranks—highly-trained and expensive geisha and oiran—to the lowest prostitutes outside the walls of Yoshiwara. Each is printed on a yellowish background and bears a different-coloured inkstick-shaped cartouche in the corner displaying the series name. The title alludes to and puns on the name of a haikai poetry anthology that appeared in 1731.