Wago Inshitsu mon E-shō

Wago Inshitsu mon E-sho is a two-volume woodblock-printed book dated 1820 by Katsushika Taito II, held by the Art Institute of Chicago. The text is a Japanese adaptation of the Yinzhi Wen, a Chinese Daoist moral treatise on the principle of hidden virtue—the idea that good deeds done in secret accumulate moral merit. The work was translated and adapted into Japanese under the title Inshitsu mon and circulated in several editions, with illustrated versions providing visual examples of virtuous and unvirtuous conduct to accompany the text. Taito II's two-volume picture-book version, dated to 1820, situates him early in his independent career and shows the breadth of subjects he handled in ehon: alongside surimono and book illustrations of literature, kacho-ga, and bijin-ga, he contributed to the moral-instruction genre that combined Confucian and Daoist ethical themes with everyday Japanese imagery. The Art Institute's holding of the book documents this dimension of Taito II's practice, which often goes underappreciated next to the more visually striking surimono.