Shutendoji in Oeyama Palace

Held in the Clarence Buckingham Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago (accession 1925.2150), Shutendoji in Oeyama Palace is a chuban color woodblock print measuring 30 by 19.5 centimeters and dated to 1765. The subject is the legendary demon Shutendoji ('Drunken Boy'), the bandit-chief and shape-shifting oni who ruled from Mount Oe and abducted noble women from the Heian capital before being slain by the hero Minamoto no Yorimitsu (Raiko) and his Four Heavenly Kings of retainers, a story dating to the late Heian and Kamakura periods and richly elaborated in subsequent picture-book and theatrical tradition. Hyakki's composition depicts a moment of the banquet scene at Shutendoji's palace, with the demon-chief attended by retinue, and the print is distinguished by its elaborate decorative effects: gold and silver leaf embellishments enrich the figures and setting, although the silver elements have now oxidized to a dark gray with age.

The Art Institute's curatorial description characterizes Hyakki as 'a poet, author, artist, and patron in premier cultural circles' and notes the likely influence of his designs on Suzuki Harunobu, situating the print squarely within the 1765 calendar exchange that produced the first full-color nishiki-e. The encoded calendar information of the original e-goyomi appears within the painted patterns of the participants' robes, which carry numerical references to the long and short months of the Meiwa 2 lunar year. The work demonstrates the unusual technical opulence of the 1765 campaign: precise multi-block registration, expensive metallic pigments and leaf, and the chuban sheet size that would become the standard format for nishiki-e production over the following decade.