Daikoku as a Woman with a Rat

This is one of seven pictures of women with attributes of the Seven Lucky Gods. They were commissioned by the Shippo circle of poets whose emblem of four adjacent arcs in a circle is used for the title cartouche and background of the print. Many of the poets whose names appear on the square poem sheets besides each figure have names which begin with fuku (happiness). This character is at the centre of the cartouche and of the circles in the background, each of which also contains four bats, an emblem of longevity. The woman is reaching for the white rate seated on top of three miniature imitations of straw-wrapped rice bales. The rat is the messenger of the God Daikoku, the subject of the print, usually represented atop a pair of rice bales.