Ageo: The Courtesan Takao of the Miuraya house Being Ransomed for Her Weight in Gold, no. 6 from the series The Sixty-nine Stations of the Kisokaidō

In the kabuki play titled The Precious Incense and the Bush Clover of Sendai, Takao (the name for the highest ranked courtesan) sits on one end of a scale to determine the price of her contract to the wealthy lord Ashikaga Yorikane. The brothel owner and manager have added weights to her clothing to increase her price, causing her dress to visually dominate the image. The inset landscape is in the shape of a maple leaf, Takao’s crest, which is echoed in her clothing and her hair. In Japanese, age means “to raise” and o refers to Takao’s name. Thus, the first part of the print’s title is a pun on both the name of the stop and the action of raising Takao’s worth on the scale.