Hotei

This vertical hanging scroll depicts the smiling, portly itinerant monk Hotei (Ch. Budai) walking with an enormous large cloth sack suspended by an improbably thin long staff resting on his left shoulder. His left elbow and forearm wrap around the lower end of the staff to balance the heavy sack; in his left hand he grasps a Buddhist rosary, rendered here as a simple circle instead of a circular string of beads. Executed in quick strokes of black ink and gray wash, the subject stands against a completely plain background. A red square intaglio seal is impressed near the lower left corner.