Joriken riding his sword across water, section of a sheet from an untitled harimaze series

This 1858 Utagawa Kunisada print presents the Chinese immortal Joriken (Chinese: Lu Dongbin or a related figure) flying across the waves astride his magical sword, a popular subject borrowed from Daoist legend and frequently treated in Edo ukiyo-e. The image is a section, or vignette, from a sheet in an untitled harimaze series, the harimaze format being a specific Edo print convention in which a single oban sheet was divided into several independent compositions intended to be cut apart and pasted into albums or scrapbooks by collectors. Although Kunisada is best known as the master of yakusha-e, he produced a wide range of subjects, and his treatment of Chinese heroes and immortals demonstrates the breadth of late Edo ukiyo-e iconography. In this vignette, Joriken's robes billow in the headwind generated by his airborne ride, his beard streaming, while the curling waves below are rendered in the rhythmic, stylized line that Kunisada inherited from the Utagawa landscape tradition. Harimaze sheets were economical for publishers, since they packaged what amounted to several small prints into a single oban, but they posed real design challenges: each vignette had to read as a complete composition on its own. Kunisada's command of the form is evident in the way he sets Joriken diagonally within the panel, balancing figure and seascape so that the small image holds its own visual weight. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves this section in its collection of Edo ukiyo-e, where it offers a glimpse into the more inventive corners of Kunisada's late-career output.