Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) Hatsuhana, Edo period, 19th century

Hatsuhana was the beautiful wife of the warrior Iinuma Katsugoro, on whose behalf she spent one hundred days under a waterfall in prayer to the deity Hakone Gongen in an attempt to cure his illness. Hatsuhana was subsequently killed, however her efforts paid off as the deity appeared to her husband and cured him. Kuniyoshi portrays Hatsuhana with the thunderous waterfall bearing down upon her, creating a curtain of translucent-blue water cascading around her, as she sits resolutely with her hands clasped in prayer.

For another impression of the same print in the collection of The British Museum, museum no. 2008,3037.15606, go to: https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_2008-3037-15606