Utagawa Kuninaga (歌川國長) (artist ca 1779 – 1827)
Mitate representations of the Eight Legendary Chinese Wizards or Fūryū hachi sennin (風流八仙人)
10/1806
10.125 in x 14.875 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Kuninaga ga (国長画)
Publisher: Izumiya Ichibei
(Marks 180 - seal not listed)
Censor's seal: kiwame
Date seal: 1806, 11th month
Royal Museums of Art and History, Belgium (via Cultural Japan) - left-hand panel only
The Chester Beatty Library
Lyon Collection - Kiyochika representation of Kinkō, the Taoist immortal, riding on a fish The use of beautiful young women as stand-ins for the Taoist immortals
The use of substitutes or mitate in Japanese woodblock prints is common. The term 'mitate' has many shades of meaning, but here, for our purposes, it is the use of beautiful young women in lieu of the original Taoist figures. We will focus briefly on just one of them, a woman riding an enormous fish while reading a love letter. She represents the immortal Kinkō 子英 (in Chinese it is Qingao 琴高). Kuninaga was not the first to use this trope. Utamaro had created a similar image in the early 1790s, Harunobu had used this image more than once in ca. 1768-69, and Okumura Masanobu before him in the early 18th century.
Note that we have added two jpegs below the featured triptych on this page. One is by Utamaro and the other is Harunobu. David Waterhouse wrote on page 311 in the text volume of The Harunobu Decade: "The conceit in all these Daoist mitate is that beautiful courtesans possess and can confer on others the secret of immortality. These prints were therefore suitable as congratulatory gifts at New Year."
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Illustrated in color in a three page foldout in Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections: Museo d'Arte Orientale, Genoa II, vol. 11, Kodansha, 1989, supervised by Muneshige Narazaki, #125.
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"This triptych depicts the eight famous Chinese hermits or wizards (Ba Xian) as contemporary beauties in various poses. These figures are, from left to right: Zhang Guo-lao depicted as a young courtesan in a long-sleeved kimono, shaking a horse out of a bottle gourd; Wang Zi-qiao, as a noble woman riding on a crane; Lu Dong-bin as a samurai's wife, calling forth a dragon out of a bowl in her hand; Qin Gao as a geisha riding on a carp; Li Tie-guai as a concubine, blowing out a small image of herself; the 'Toad' Wizard as a girl of the merchant class, playing a game using different hand shapes with a frog; Feng Gan as a courtesan, accompanied by a tiger; and Zhuang-zi, famous for his dream of a butterfly, as a wife of the merchant class."
Quoted from: English Supplement: Ukiyo-e Masterpieces in European Collections 11, Museo d'Arte Orientale, Genoa, II, Kodansha, n.d., p. 8, Pl. 125.
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The woman riding on the fish in the center panel represents Kinkō (Qingao 琴高) the Taoist immortal. The figure standing on the far left represents Chōkarō (Zhang Guo-lao 张果老). Zhang Guo-lao rode around China on a remarkable donkey that could be folded up like a piece of origami. Zhang often rode it backwards. He is often seen carrying a peacock feather and a peach, which is not evident here. He could also produce a magical horse which he carried in a gourd with him.
Izumiya Ichibei (和泉屋市兵衛) (publisher)
mitate-e (見立て絵) (genre)