Okita of the Naniwaya: Edo's Teahouse Celebrity
She poured tea and became one of the most famous faces in Edo. The story behind Utamaro's portrait of Naniwaya Okita, and how woodblock prints made everyday people into celebrities.
A Real Person, Not a Character
The woman in this print was real. Her name was Naniwaya Okita. In the 1790s she worked as a waitress at a teahouse called the Naniwaya, near the gate of the great Asakusa temple in Edo, the city we now call Tokyo.
She was not a courtesan or an actress. She poured tea. But she was beautiful, word spread, and soon people came to the teahouse just to see her. Kitagawa Utamaro made her face famous across the city.
The First Celebrities
Here is one of the interesting things about old ukiyo-e prints. Long before photography, prints turned ordinary people into stars.
Okita was one of three young women everyone in Edo knew. People called them the Three Beauties. The other two were Takashima Ohisa, who worked at another teahouse, and Tomimoto Toyohina, an entertainer. Utamaro drew all three, sometimes together in a single print. They were the famous faces of their day, and their pictures sold fast.
Okita became such a draw that artists even paired her with star sumo wrestlers in prints, the way you might put two famous names together now.
How to Hide a Name
There is a small mystery in prints like this. In 1793 the government banned printing the names of women on pictures, unless they were courtesans. Officials thought it was improper.
Artists got around it. Utamaro began hiding names inside picture puzzles: small objects in the print that sounded like the woman's name when you said them out loud. When those were banned too, he used other tricks. You could also tell who a woman was by the family crest on her fan or collar. Okita's crest was a paulownia leaf. People knew how to read these clues, the way fans today spot a star from a single detail.
Utamaro and the Beautiful Women
Kitagawa Utamaro, who lived from about 1753 to 1806, was the great master of bijin-ga, "pictures of beautiful women." More than anyone, he drew real, named women of his own time instead of made-up ideals.
He is best known for close-up portraits that show just the head and shoulders. They feel personal. Instead of a small figure in a wide scene, you get the face, the hair, the slight turn of the neck. You feel like you are meeting someone.
The Print We Have
The print we carry is a reproduction of Utamaro's design. It is a real woodblock print, made by hand in the traditional way, not a machine copy. It measures about 405 by 278mm. It is pre-owned and shows some age, with creases, spots, and marks, which is normal for a print like this. The product page has photos of the exact condition.
You can see more Utamaro prints here. We also wrote about the painting behind our name, another Utamaro design. New to prints? Our guide on original, reprint, or reproduction explains the terms.
Sources
John Fiorillo, Viewing Japanese Prints — on Utamaro and Edo sumptuary laws.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art — Okita of the Naniwaya Teahouse.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston — Three Beauties of the Present Day.
Art Institute of Chicago — Naniwaya Okita.
British Museum — a Utamaro print identifying Okita by her crest.