Kayoi Komachi, from the series "Seven Elegant Episodes of the Poet Komachi" (Fūryū nanakomachi kayoi)

Chobunsai Eishi designed this 1785 print as part of the series Furyu nanakomachi, or Seven Elegant Episodes of the Poet Komachi, in which contemporary beauties replace the celebrated Heian poetess Ono no Komachi in iconic scenes from her legend. The Kayoi Komachi episode refers to the courtier Fukakusa no Shosho, who was said to have visited the unyielding poet on a hundred consecutive nights, dying on the last. Eishi transposes this poignant tale into an updated Edo [bijin-ga](/glossary/bijin-ga) register, presenting the figure with the elongated proportions, sloping shoulders, and tapered fingers that became the artist's hallmark. As a Kano-trained [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) designer who had studied under Kano Eisen'in before entering the floating-world market, Eishi brought an aristocratic restraint to the print. The kimono patterns are arranged in calm, evenly weighted folds rather than the assertive curves favored by his contemporary Utamaro, and the figure's gaze is averted in a manner inherited from courtly painting traditions. Issued by a leading Edo publisher, the sheet uses the small-color palette typical of mid-1780s [nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e), with delicate fleshtones offset by deeper indigo and brown garments. The Metropolitan Museum of Art preserves an impression with strong line work and only minor toning, recorded in its online collection under accession search 56827. The print is representative of Eishi's earliest mature series, in which he demonstrated that the literary subjects long handled by the Kano academy could be re-imagined as fashionable images of women without losing their poetic gravity. It anchors his transition from samurai painter to recognized master of Edo bijin-ga.