A Lady Visiting a Shrine Followed by a Boy with Kite

Totoya Hokkei's 1822 surimono of a lady visiting a shrine followed by a boy with a kite, held by the Art Institute of Chicago, gathers several auspicious motifs of the Edo New Year season into a single quiet scene. Shrine visits (hatsumode) at New Year were among the most important rituals of the urban calendar, and the kite carried by the attendant child evokes both the seasonal pastime of kite-flying and the broader association of children with renewal and good fortune. Such subjects were favored in the Edo kyoka-e milieu, where surimono frequently functioned as season's greetings between members of poetry clubs. As a leading pupil of the Hokusai school, Hokkei was practiced at translating contemporary urban customs into refined small-format designs, drawing on Katsushika Hokusai's broad repertoire of Edo life and ritual. The surimono format encouraged deluxe printing effects — embossing on the lady's robes, metallic pigments for accessories, graded color for the sky — that gave each impression a richly tactile presence. Kyoka verses inscribed alongside the image would have personalized the print for its original recipients, turning a generic seasonal scene into a particular New Year's greeting. The Art Institute of Chicago's example places Totoya Hokkei's design within a major institutional collection of Edo surimono, where its place in the broader Hokusai school can be readily traced.