Brush: Lady Wei (Fude: Ei fujin), from the series "The Four Friends of the Writing Table for the Ichiyo Circle (Ichiyoren bunbo shiyu)"

Brush: Lady Wei (Fude: Ei fujin) comes from Yashima Gakutei's surimono series The Four Friends of the Writing Table for the Ichiyo Circle (Ichiyoren bunbo shiyu), dated to 1822 and held by the Art Institute of Chicago. The bunbo shiyu of the title - the brush, ink, paper, and inkstone - were the traditional four implements of the literati scholar in China and Japan, often personified through historical figures associated with each tool. Lady Wei (Wei Furen, in Japanese Ei fujin) was a fourth-century Chinese calligrapher who became the legendary teacher of Wang Xizhi and the canonical female embodiment of brushwork. The series therefore matches each writing implement to a famous personage, and the Ichiyo circle - the poetry club for which the set was commissioned - would have recognized the conceit immediately. Yashima Gakutei, a leading surimono designer within the Hokusai school under Katsushika Hokusai, shapes Lady Wei with the elongated dignity proper to a literati ancestor, balancing the figure against carefully reserved white space for the kyoka verses. The sheet uses the deluxe surimono techniques that define the genre at its peak: multiple impressions of mineral pigments, karazuri embossing of textiles, and burnished metallic powders that catch raking light. As a Yashima Gakutei kyoka-e in the Hokusai school manner, this print belongs to one of the most carefully programmed surimono sets of the early 1820s.