Ono no Komachi Washing the Copybook, from the series The Fashionable Seven Komachi (Furyu nana Komachi)
Edo period (1615–1868), about 1788
Medium
Color woodblock print; oban
Dimensions
38.4 × 25.7 cm (15 1/8 × 10 1/8 in.)
Classification
woodblock print
Department
Arts of Asia
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
24105
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This series of seven prints, four of which are on display in this gallery, show scenes from the life of the poet Ono no Komachi. Many of these events became the basis of Nō and Kabuki plays and were also popular subjects for visual arts. Each story illustrated in the series is identifiable from a few visual clues. Here three women doing laundry by the river stand in for Komachi; the scene alludes to an incident in which the poet washed a poetry book to wipe away altered text inserted by a rival.
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...