Women Visiting an Inari Shrine

This color woodblock print at the Art Institute of Chicago is a single sheet from an oban triptych depicting women on a visit to an Inari shrine, one of the most numerous shrine types in Edo. Inari, the deity of rice, agriculture, prosperity, and the fox, was venerated at thousands of sites across the city, ranging from major foundations like the Oji Inari shrine to small neighborhood altars maintained by merchants. Inari worship was particularly associated with women's prayers for household and commercial success, and visits to local shrines were a routine part of the urban devotional calendar. Shuncho uses the religious occasion to frame a procession of fashionable women in his characteristic Tenmei manner, with tall figures, careful spacing, and rich textile detailing in the kimono. The fact that this is the right sheet (with the matching left at Art Institute accession number 1925.2707) is recorded in the museum cataloguing, allowing scholars to reconstruct the full triptych composition.