Women on a boat at New Year imitating the Seven Gods of Good Fortune

Women on a boat at New Year imitating the Seven Gods of Good Fortune, recorded by the Art Institute of Chicago with a date of 1769, belongs to the playful mitate tradition of Edo ukiyo-e, in which contemporary figures stand in for revered religious or legendary subjects. Here Utagawa Toyokuni replaces the traditional treasure-laden takarabune, which carried the Seven Gods of Good Fortune across the harbor at New Year, with a boat full of fashionably dressed women, each assuming the role of one of the Shichifukujin. The conceit was a familiar one in the print market: the auspicious imagery of the gods was retained, while the visual interest of beautiful women in current costume gave the design fresh appeal. Toyokuni distributes the figures across the boat in a careful pattern so that each woman's pose and attribute alludes to one of the deities, while the boat itself, the rigging, and the water below provide a stable scaffolding. The print's blend of New Year ritual, mitate wit, and bijin-ga elegance is highly characteristic of Edo print culture, and the work demonstrates that even as Toyokuni was preparing the ground for his yakusha-e fame, he was deeply engaged with the wider repertoire of subjects that Edo ukiyo-e demanded. The Art Institute of Chicago preserves the sheet as an example of how religious imagery and popular fashion mingled in late eighteenth-century Edo, with Utagawa Toyokuni as one of its most agile interpreters.