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I seek your kind assistance in the reading of a signature on a Edo period ukiyo-e painting in pillar format, early 19th century. Probably a depiction of a young girl in traveling clothes, which is unusual.

I read the signature partially as 柳島 ?女 筆 - 'Yanagishima {not read}jo hitsu'.
I fail to read the 1st character of the proper name.

The seal remains illegible.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Guy.

Now that you have seen a reply to your difficult question you will be unhappy that it's as useless as this one is: you have me stumped! Unless the character is possibly 有 (or more unlikely, something like 斋 --by which I mean the "sai" character in Tessai).

Perhaps more suggestive: a couple of elements that intuition (but no facility with Japanese calligraphy) calls to mind include: a shape such as 广，文，or 父 for the top element, and 耳，田，or part of 海 for the bottom right element.

rat,

Thanks for guiding me once again in the right direction.
The closest match looks to be the character 斉 ('shi', 'sei', 'sai', 'itsuki') - see cursive character left in 'Identifying Japanese cursive script' by Markus Sesko.

So, the signature in his whole should be 柳島斉女筆, which I believe, was probably pronounced as 'Yanagishima Seijo hitsu'. I also think that the artist was probably a woman.

Best,
Guy.

great, glad you found it! thanks for the reference to the Sesko book, I was unaware of it

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