(Lovers as Mitate of Daruma Crossing the Yangtse River on a Reed) c. early 18th century

This woodblock print was made by Okumura Masanobu in Japan, sometime in the first half of the 18th century. It depicts two lovers in a domestic setting, but it also alludes to the legend of Daruma, the founder of Zen Buddhism, crossing the Yangtze River on a reed. The image is a *mitate*, a visual pun that superimposes one subject onto another, a common practice in Japanese art of this time. The courtesan's robe bears Daruma's image, and the poem slip, which contains the lover’s vows, is a coded reference to the famous crossing. Masanobu ran one of the most influential printmaking workshops in Edo, present-day Tokyo, and was instrumental in developing new printing techniques. The *mitate* genre appealed to the educated merchant class, who enjoyed these playful and erudite allusions. The print is a testament to the increasing sophistication and secularization of Japanese art during the Edo period, which had a self-consciously progressive attitude to traditional art subjects. To truly understand it, we need to look at the publishing history and the cultural context in which the artist was working.