Ehon Fukujin ukiyo-fukuro

Suzuki Harunobu's Ehon Fukujin ukiyo-fukuro, held by the Art Institute of Chicago, is a printed book by the artist, structured around the Seven Gods of Good Luck and the conceit of the floating world contained within a treasure bag (fukuro). Ehon, illustrated books, were an essential part of Harunobu's output, allowing him to extend his ukiyo-e woodblock printing into multi-page narrative and pictorial sequences that could be enjoyed at leisure in the home. Combining playful textual references to the lucky gods with stylized depictions of contemporary urban beauties and pleasures, the book exemplifies Harunobu's gift for layering classical or popular religious motifs onto the Edo bijin-ga manner that defined his prints. Each composition treats its subjects with the slender proportions, small oval faces, and softly modulated lines characteristic of his mature work, while the printed pages benefit from the same polychrome refinements associated with the nishiki-e revolution he helped launch in 1765. The Seven Gods of Good Luck framework provides a structuring device that lets Harunobu range across themes of prosperity, longevity, and pleasure, all rendered through observed Edo urban life. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves this volume as part of its extensive holdings of Suzuki Harunobu's work, where it documents the artist's contribution to ukiyo-e bookmaking. The fukuro of the title becomes a metaphor for the book itself: a container in which the lucky gods and the floating world are bundled together as gifts to the reader.