Courtesan Eguchi as the Bodhisattva Fugen with a White Elephant

A beautiful woman clothed in a sumptuously decorated blue, white, and gold kimono stands grasping a thin staff in both hands while swirling bands of white clouds trail behind her, gather beneath her feet, and take on the form of a white elephant; beneath these ethereal figures appears an expanse of pale blue waves. The subject of this exquisite painting derives from a fifteenth-century Noh play about a courtesan believed to be a manifestation of Fugen Bosatsu (Sanskrit, Bodhisattva Samantabhadra), a Buddhist deity described in the Lotus Sutra as accompanying the Historical Buddha Shakyamuni and typically depicted in Buddhist art as holding a staff and riding a white elephant. The imagery here is perfectly complemented by a dark blue and white silk mounting painted to echo the swirling clouds and flowing waves in the painted scene. The signature and seal of artist Ogawa Haritsu (1663-1747) appears in the lower right corner of the composition.