Young Woman Riding a Phoenix

1765

Color woodblock print, 20.5 × 27.7 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago

A girl in fashionable Edo dress rides a phoenix through the air, perhaps playing a Chinese immortal.

Look at her sleeve: numbers for the year's long months suggest a 1765 calendar.
Her panpipes suggest a flute-playing sage; the bird suggests another, often shown riding a phoenix.
If so, the print is a mitate.

Mitate: Playful parody or “likening”: a classical subject or legend recast in contemporary dress.