Komachi and the Stupa (Sotoba Komachi), from the series "Informal Parodies of the Seven Komachi in the Pleasure Quarters (Seiro ryaku nana Komachi)"

Komachi and the Stupa by Isoda Koryusai belongs to the series Seiro Ryaku Nana Komachi, Informal Parodies of the Seven Komachi in the Pleasure Quarters, in which the seven legends surrounding the Heian poet Ono no Komachi are relocated to the Yoshiwara. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves the impression that documents this design, dating it to 1771. Sotoba Komachi, the most famous of the seven legends, recounts the aged poet resting on a roadside stupa or sotoba, where she debates the nature of holiness with passing monks; in Koryusai's parody, the aged poet is replaced by a young courtesan, and the stupa by an object recognizable within the quarter, allowing the audience to enjoy the substitution while preserving the framework of the classical reference. The print is part of the same broader practice of layered cultural quotation that defined Koryusai's mature Edo bijin-ga, including the celebrated series Hinagata Wakana Hatsu Moyo. The Seven Komachi parodies depended on the educated audience's familiarity with the noh and joruri repertoires that dramatized the poet's life, and they offered designers a particularly elegant vehicle for treating the courtesan as both contemporary celebrity and inheritor of classical female literary tradition. For collectors, the print is a fine example of how Koryusai used the Komachi cycle to elevate the Yoshiwara into the company of the classical canon.