Poet Sōjō Henjō
early 1790s
Utamaro, usually the go-to guy for glamorous portraits of Edo-period beauties, takes a fascinating detour into literary history here with the poet-monk Sōjō Henjō. Dressed in flowing pink and green robes, the bald figure sits gracefully on a large, fan-like lotus leaf—a nod to a famous legend where he used the leaf as a boat—gazing upward as if waiting for a muse to strike. The elegant calligraphy floating to the right features his name and likely one of his waka poems, cementing his status as one of Japan's Thirty-Six Immortals of Poetry. Created in the early 1790s, this delicate illustration proves that Utamaro's brush was just as skilled with holy men as it was with courtesans.
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