Posted by Alec W. (174.105.163.103) on January 12, 2021 at 03:21:20:
In Reply to: Assistance identifying this? posted by DavidK on January 11, 2021 at 21:40:09:
It looks to me to depict a couple of high-ranking Yoshiwara courtesans, accompanied by retinues on the way to assignation houses to meet clients for the evening.
Here's a design from a 1740 Yoshiwara "Saiken" (brothel directory) showing an extremely similar scene:
https://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/2541139
In terms of identifying the book this came from, is there any half-cut-off vertical text near the outer edges of the pages? Japanese books of the Edo period very often had the title (or a version thereof) printed in that position, with a fold down the middle of the text. These can be hard to read, for obvious reasons, but sometimes it's enough to make out identifying information!
-A