The Sleeping Tea-Boy (parody of Hokaso)

The Sleeping Tea-Boy (parody of Hokaso), dating from around 1762 and preserved in the Art Institute of Chicago, exemplifies Suzuki Harunobu's love of mitate-e, the playful restaging of classical or religious subjects in everyday Edo dress. The source, the Chinese sage Hokaso (Pu Huazi), was a Zen eccentric celebrated for sleeping in odd postures and refusing the dignities of his office. Harunobu transforms the bearded recluse into a young tea-shop attendant slumped over his utensils, his head pillowed on a sleeve in a posture that mirrors traditional images of the original sage. Two companions look on, one perhaps amused, the other gently concerned. The conceit asks viewers to recognize the iconographic source and to enjoy the slippage between Zen monk and adolescent waiter. Visually the print is gentle, with restrained colors, soft contours, and the slender doll-like figures that would become the signature of Suzuki Harunobu's mature work. The print also exemplifies the deeper logic of Edo bijin-ga: by routinely substituting young commoners for venerable Chinese sages, Harunobu and his patrons quietly elevated the everyday inhabitants of the city to subjects worthy of classical attention. As an early demonstration of full-color woodblock printing only slightly before the formal nishiki-e revolution of 1765, it also documents Harunobu's steady technical advance toward the polychromatic mastery that would define the decade.