Sketches of the Life of the Great Priest

Sketches of the Life of the Great Priest (Japanese: 高祖御一代略図, Hepburn: Kōso goichidai ryakuzu) (c. 1831) is a series of ten Japanese woodblock prints in ink and color on paper made by ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798–1861). It was published by Iseya Rihei in 1835–1836. The prints, which are in the large, horizontal, multi-colored woodblock format, tell the story of Nichiren (1222–1282), a Japanese Buddhist priest, philosopher and founder of Nichiren Buddhism. The series is referred to by many names, the result of various English translations, with Illustrated Abridged Biography of the Founder one of the more popular titles.^[α]

In the Snow at Tsukahara, Sado Island is generally considered the greatest work in the entire series. Claude Monet, who was both fascinated with snowscapes and ukiyo-e, was known to own that specific print and used it to decorate his house at Giverny. The original ten prints are believed to have been used to illustrate Buddhist teaching materials and are part of an ancient illustrated literary tradition ascribed to Buddhist printmaking. It represents Kuniyoshi's eleventh major work since 1820, and somewhere around the 180–190th individual work, of a total of about 1000 works,^[β] some of which were variants, duplicates, or multiple individual works as part of a single series.^[2]

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