Chobunsai Eishi (1756-1829) | Ariwara no Narihira | Edo period, late 18th century

A bust portrait of an unnamed courtesan. Her inner robe is delicately embossed with a striated design; her outer robes with stylised blossoms. She holds a kiseru pipe as she looks to her right. Her hair is in a style called yoko-hyogo which has a shape like a butterfly with open wings

The poem by Ariwara no Narihira (825-880), one of the Six Poetic Immortals (Rokkasen), has been translated by Donald Keene in A History of Japanese Literature, Vol. 1: Seeds in the Heart – Japanese Literature from Earliest Times to the Late Sixteenth Century (New York, 1999), p. 226:

Is that not the moon?

And is the spring not the spring

Of a year ago?

This body of mine alone

Remains as it was before.

Tsuki ya aranu

haru ya mukashi no

haru naranu

wa ga mi hitotsu wa

moto no mi ni shite

Four other designs from the same series are in museum collections, including:

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, accession numbers 21.4921 and 21.4920:

https://collections.mfa.org/objects/232599

https://collections.mfa.org/objects/232598

The Art Institute of Chicago, reference number 1942.81:

https://www.artic.edu/artworks/89907/a-selection-of-six-flowers-a-parody-rokkasen-yatsushi-rokkasen-bishop-henjo

The British Museum, museum number 1927,0518,0.5:

https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1927-0518-0-5