Views of Reception Rooms in Japan - Entertainments on the Day of the Rat in the Modern Style (Uki-e wakoku keiseki ozashiki imayo ne no hi no asobi no zu)

This [oban](/glossary/oban) color woodblock print, c. 1771/76 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago, carries a long descriptive title characteristic of Toyoharu's uki-e advertising: 'Views of Reception Rooms in Japan - Entertainments on the Day of the Rat in the Modern Style.' The 'Day of the Rat' (ne no hi) refers to the first day of the rat in the New Year, traditionally celebrated by going into the countryside to pull up young pine seedlings as a wish for long life. Here that ritual is reset 'in the modern style' (imayo) into an Edo reception room (ozashiki), with patrons enjoying themselves indoors in a deep perspective construction. The print is a textbook example of Toyoharu's uki-e formula: a Japanese-room subject organised by orthogonals receding to a vanishing point at the rear sliding screens, with figures distributed across the floor and verandah at carefully diminishing scales. By keeping the title's first phrase 'Views of Reception Rooms in Japan' (uki-e wakoku keiseki ozashiki), the publisher framed the perspective technique as a fundamentally domestic Japanese genre, even though the optical system was understood in the trade to derive from Dutch and Chinese sources.