Zeng Shen (Jp: So Shin), from the series "Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety (Nijushiko)"

Totoya Hokkei's surimono of Zeng Shen (Jp: So Shin), from his series Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety (Nijushiko), is recorded in the Art Institute of Chicago's catalogue with a 1820 date. Zeng Shen, the celebrated disciple of Confucius, embodies one of the most distinctive episodes in the Nijushiko: while gathering firewood in the mountains, he is said to have felt a sudden, intuitive pang corresponding to the moment his mother bit her finger to summon him home, a sign of the deep bond between filial son and parent. The cycle was a favored framework in Edo kyoka-e clubs, who valued the learned Chinese subject matter as a setting for their kyoka verses. Hokkei, one of the most active surimono designers of his generation and a leading pupil of the Hokusai school, was well prepared to translate the moral tale into image: Katsushika Hokusai had himself drawn extensively on Chinese sources, and his pupils inherited a confident, slightly archaizing approach to such material. As with the rest of the series, the sheet would have been issued in a small edition with kyoka verses inscribed alongside the figure, printed on thick paper with the deluxe finishes characteristic of surimono. Within the Hokusai school's wider engagement with Sino-Japanese moral exempla, Hokkei's Zeng Shen stands as a measured, literary contribution to one of the most ambitious surimono series of its era.