Paintings and woodblock prints now on view in the Asian Galleries celebrate two Japanese artists who worked in the Nanga style that drew on Chinese scholar-painter traditions: Nakabayashi Chikutô (1776-1853) and Yamamoto Baiitsu (1783-1856). Chikutô painted this figure of Jurojin, the god of longevity; his friend, the eminent calligrapher Nukina Kaioku (1778-1863), inscribed the painting. In the literati tradition, a painting of Jurojin could be a "birthday picture," with the deity standing in for the birthday celebrant. But Kaioku was also active in Kyoto loyalist circles that advocated the overthrow of the shogun, suggesting another interpretation of the painting: the figure of the god of long life could stand for the emperor and a wish for the restoration of the monarchy - a wish partially granted in 1868, when the Tokugawa shogunate was overthrown.
