Hotei, from the series "Comparison of the Treasures of the Gods of Good Fortune (Fukujin takara awase)"

Hotei, from the series Comparison of the Treasures of the Gods of Good Fortune (Fukujin takara awase), dated 1790 in the Art Institute of Chicago, places a contemporary beauty in the role of the popular folk deity Hotei, one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune. Chōbunsai Eishi follows the mitate strategy central to the Chobunsai school by dressing the god in the guise of an Edo beauty: emblematic attributes such as the great sack of treasure identify the source while the surface remains a portrait of [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga). The series Fukujin takara awase expands the literary mitate Eishi favored from classical poetry to popular religious imagery, demonstrating that the device worked equally well with material drawn from the city's everyday devotional life. The print's composition shows the elongated proportions and long sustained contours of Eishi's mature style, with color restrained so that patterned textile and emblematic attribute carry the visual weight. Eishi's training under the Kano master Eisen'in Michinobu in the shogun's studio is visible in the careful spatial composition and the measured handling of the figure's gesture and gaze. The sheet is a clear example of how Eishi used the named series format to extend his catalogue of beauties into ever more layered allegorical frameworks, treating the Seven Gods of Good Fortune as a generative armature for bijin-ga subjects. The Art Institute of Chicago records the impression's 1790 date and its place in the series.