Beauty and Young Man Riding an Ox (parody of Kyoyu and Sobu?)

Held by the Art Institute of Chicago, this hosoban benizuri-e is one of Shigenaga's late and most refined mitate prints, parodying the Chinese hermit-recluses Kyoyu (Xu You) and Sobu (Chao Fu), whose legend has them so committed to refusing political honors that one of them washed his ear in a river after hearing the emperor offer him power. The standard iconography of Kyoyu and Sobu shows them and their ox at the river, and Shigenaga's substitution of a beauty and a young man for the two ancient hermits is the kind of witty mitate transposition central to ukiyo-e culture. The print is a benizuri-e (printed color from two or three blocks rather than hand-applied beni or urushi-e), placing it in Shigenaga's late period of the 1740s when Edo printers were industrializing color application. The hosoban format and the gentle palette suit the parody subject: the contemporary couple imitates the gravity of the classical scene without ever quite achieving it, the visual pleasure lying in the gap between source and substitution. The Chicago impression is in good state and illustrates Shigenaga's continued inventiveness late in his career.