Kasamori Osen - Kasamori Osen

In the early years of the Meiwa era (1764-1769), she was a waitress at Kagiya, a water teahouse located in the grounds of Kasamori Inari Shrine in Yanaka, Edo. Along with Yanagiya O-Fuji, who ran a toothpick shop behind the Asakusa Kannon Temple, and Tsutaya O-Yoshi, who ran Nijūken Teahouse in Asakusa, she was highly acclaimed as a beautiful teahouse girl and poster girl. O-Sen was particularly popular, and was featured in a single-panel nishikie print as a model for early nishikie paintings of beautiful women, as well as being adapted into a kabuki play. In 1770 (Meiwa 7), she became the wife of Kuraji Masanosuke, a retainer of the Tokugawa shogunate, and died of illness in 1829 (Bunsei 12). Her name is remembered in the temariuta (ball-ball song) that goes, "O-Inari-san in the alley over there..."

[Yoichi Harashima]

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

明和(めいわ)初年（1764～69ころ）に江戸・谷中(やなか)の笠森稲荷(いなり)境内にあった水茶屋の鎰屋(かぎや)にいた給仕女。浅草観音裏の楊枝(ようじ)店の柳屋お藤(ふじ)、浅草二十軒茶屋の蔦屋(つたや)お芳(よし)とともに美人の茶屋女、看板娘として評判が高かった。なかでもお仙は人気が高く、初期錦絵(にしきえ)の美人画モデルとして一枚絵の錦絵になったほか、歌舞伎(かぶき)芝居に脚色された。1770年（明和7）に御家人の倉地政之助(まさのすけ)の妻となり、1829年（文政12）病没。「向こう横町のお稲荷さん……」の手鞠唄(てまりうた)に名を残す。

［原島陽一］

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