Komachi, from the series "Six Immortal Poets (Rokkasen)"
c. 1789/90
Medium
Color woodblock print; oban
Dimensions
40.6 × 25.4 cm (16 × 10 in.)
Classification
woodblock print
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
77466
Art Historical Context
This elegant color woodblock print by Chôbunsai Eishi portrays Komachi, one of the celebrated Six Immortal Poets (Rokkasen), a legendary group of Heian-period poets revered in Japanese literature. Created around 1789–90 during the late Edo period, the oban-sized sheet (approximately 16 by 10 inches) belongs to a series that reimagines these classical figures as graceful beauties in contemporary dress. Eishi, originally trained in the formal Kanō school of painting, brought a refined sensibility to ukiyo-e, the popular “pictures of the floating world” that captured the elegance and transience o...
About the Artist
Chôbunsai Eishi · 1756–1829
Chôbunsai Eishi, born Hosoda Tokitomi in 1756 to a prosperous samurai family of the Fujiwara clan in Edo, inherited a substantial stipend of 500 koku of rice annually. His grandfather had served as the shogunate's Treasury Minister, and upon his father Hosoda Tokiyuki's death in 1772, Eishi became family head while holding a position in Shogun Tokugawa Ieharu's palace from 1781. Unusually for a uk...