One of the Seven Komachi: Amagoi (Praying for Rain)

Isoda Koryusai's One of the Seven Komachi: Amagoi (Praying for Rain), catalogued by the Metropolitan Museum of Art under accession 55942, treats one episode from the long-standing iconographic cycle of the Seven Komachi, in which the legendary Heian poetess Ono no Komachi appears in seven canonical scenes drawn from no plays and from the broader narrative tradition. Amagoi refers to the scene in which Komachi prays for rain by composing and reciting a poem, an episode that demonstrates the practical efficacy of her literary art. Koryusai uses the yatsushi convention to recast the scene in contemporary dress, replacing the Heian-period Komachi with a fashionable woman of his own era and using the figural design as a vehicle for Edo bijin-ga. The composition isolates the central figure in the standing format that Koryusai refined throughout the 1770s, layered robes and a broad outer over-kimono filling the picture surface with patterned textile, while the title cartouche preserves the link to the Komachi cycle and the specific Amagoi episode. The face follows the small-mouthed, elongated convention of Koryusai's mature manner. The print belongs to the cluster of classical-parody designs that adjoin the named-courtesan portraiture of Hinagata Wakana within Koryusai's wider output, and the Metropolitan Museum's catalogue preserves the title and the attribution to the artist.