Senshafuda after Komura Settai

A senshafuda print featuring a monkey (saru), executed after a design by Komura Settai. Senshafuda are small votive slips traditionally pasted by pilgrims on temple gates and shrine pillars, which evolved into a collectible print form during the late Edo and Meiji periods, with designs commissioned from notable artists for exchange among connoisseurs. The format demands compositional economy: a single motif rendered with clarity within a narrow vertical or rectangular field, often incorporating the patron's or pilgrim's name in stylized characters. A monkey subject would draw on a long iconographic tradition in Japanese art, where saru carry associations with the zodiac, with Sanno shrine guardianship, and with the proverbial three wise monkeys. Settai's known designs favor flat planes of color, restrained line, and the spare elegance characteristic of his bijin-ga and literary illustrations for authors such as Izumi Kyoka. A senshafuda after his hand would translate that refined nihonga sensibility into the miniature, devotional format, printed on washi using traditional mokuhanga technique with hand-cut blocks and baren-burnished impressions.