Ancient Poems (Waka) and Ebisu (One of Seven Lucky Gods): Events of New Year's Day with Kyōka (Waka Ebisu)

Kitagawa Utamaro's Ancient Poems (Waka) and Ebisu (One of Seven Lucky Gods): Events of New Year's Day with Kyoka (Waka Ebisu) is a 1789 ukiyo-e print in the Harvard Art Museums collection (object 211242). The design unites two characteristic registers of Edo culture that Utamaro frequently drew together: ancient waka poetry, with its classical pedigree, and the comic kyoka, or 'mad verse,' that was the principal poetic fashion of his patrons among Edo's literary clubs. Above or alongside the figural composition the print typically carried kyoka verses by named contributors, making the sheet both an image and a record of a poetry circle. The reference to Ebisu, one of the Seven Lucky Gods (shichifukujin) and the patron of fishermen and commerce, anchors the design to New Year's Day, when households and shops invoked Ebisu and the other lucky gods for prosperity in the year ahead. Utamaro's contribution to this New Year subject is rendered in his early mature manner: refined keyblock line, careful nishiki-e printing, and a measured composition that gives equal weight to figural design and inscribed text. As a luxury kyoka surimono-adjacent production rather than a mass-market sheet, this kind of print speaks to Utamaro's deep involvement in Edo literary circles in the late 1780s, the same circles that helped establish him as the leading designer of bijin-ga later in his career. The Harvard Art Museums' holding makes the print available for study of how Utamaro joined poetic patronage, New Year ritual, and ukiyo-e printmaking in a single luxury sheet, and how Edo bijin-ga emerged from the broader visual and literary culture around kyoka and the lucky gods.