The Seven Gods of Good Fortune in the Treasure Boat

This Museum of Fine Arts print by Sadatora addresses one of the most enduring iconographic subjects of Japanese New Year tradition: the takarabune (treasure ship) carrying the seven gods of good fortune (shichifukujin) into the harbor of the new year. The composition assembles the seven deities—Daikoku, the god of wealth; Ebisu, the patron of fishermen and merchants; Bishamon, the warrior guardian; Benzaiten, the goddess of music and water; Hotei, the laughing god of contentment; Jurōjin, the deity of longevity; and Fukurokuju, the god of wisdom and prosperity—aboard a ship laden with the legendary treasures of inexhaustible abundance, including the magic mallet, the inexhaustible purse, the lucky raincoat, and sacred scrolls. By Edo-period convention, prints of the takarabune were placed under pillows on the second night of the new year to induce auspicious dreams (hatsuyume), and the subject was a perennial commercial mainstay of the late-year and early-year print market. Sadatora's contribution to the iconographic tradition demonstrates the Utagawa-school approach to auspicious imagery: bold figural drawing, dense pattern on the deities' robes, and the careful organization of the boat's cargo as a visual catalog of New Year's prosperity symbols. The MFA example contributes to the documentation of late-Edo treasure-ship iconography and to the surviving body of Sadatora's auspicious prints, which also included individual portraits of Hotei and Daikoku from the same Seven Gods cycle.