Ryuo, the King of Dragon

Totoya Hokkei's 1820 surimono of Ryuo, the Dragon King, held by the Art Institute of Chicago, draws on a rich body of legend in which the lord of the undersea palace governs the waters and their inhabitants. The Dragon King appears in stories from China and India as well as Japan, including the tale of Urashima Taro, and his powerful figure made him a favored subject in Edo kyoka-e circles. Hokkei, one of the most accomplished pupils of the Hokusai school, was particularly adept at supernatural subjects of this kind, having absorbed Katsushika Hokusai's sustained interest in dragons, sea monsters and mythological beings. The surimono format encouraged the use of deluxe printing techniques — graded color, embossing, mica and metallic pigments — well suited to rendering scales, water and the courtly regalia of a marine sovereign. As a kyoka-e commission, the sheet would have shared its surface with kyoka verses composed by a poetry club, the dragon king lending classical and seasonal associations that the poets could explore. Within Hokkei's body of surimono, where mythological figures often serve as foils for literary play, Ryuo embodies the productive overlap of Sinitic dragon lore, Japanese maritime tales and the technical luxuries of the early nineteenth-century private print.