Parody of the Third Princess and Her Pet Cat

Isoda Koryusai's Parody of the Third Princess and Her Pet Cat, dated 1767 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, belongs to the rich tradition of mitate-e — pictures that update classical narratives by reimagining them in contemporary Edo settings. The reference is to the famous Genji monogatari episode in which Onna San no Miya, the Third Princess, allows her cat to dart out from behind a blind, inadvertently exposing her to the gaze of Kashiwagi and setting in motion the novel's tragic later movements. Koryusai transposes the moment into the visual idiom of his own day, dressing his princess in Meiwa-era robes and turning the curtain into a more domestic blind or screen. The cat itself — the literary pivot of the entire scene — sits or springs near the figure, drawing the viewer's eye exactly where the original anecdote demanded. Such literary parody was a central conceit of Edo bijin-ga, and Koryusai used the device repeatedly to flatter educated viewers who could match contemporary fashion to courtly precedent. The same impulse would later inform his Hinagata Wakana no Hatsumoyo series, where modern courtesans posed in compositions echoing classical themes. Koryusai's drawing here is economical: the body of the princess curves with restraint, the cat is captured in a few decisive lines, and the overall palette stays close to his early benizuri-e and early nishiki-e range. The result is a deft fusion of high literature and ukiyo-e wit, and it documents how a designer of Koryusai's generation invited Edo viewers to read the present through the long shadow of the Heian court.