Hikone screen

The Hikone screen (彦根屏風, Hikone byōbu) is a Japanese painted byōbu folding screen of unknown authorship made during the Kan'ei era (c. 1624–44). The 94-×-274.8-centimetre (37.0 × 108.2 in) screen folds in six parts and is painted on gold-leaf paper. It depicts people in the pleasure quarters of Kyoto playing music and games. The screen comes from the feudal Hikone Domain, ruled by the screen's owners, the Ii clan. It is owned by the city of Hikone in Shiga Prefecture, in the Ii Naochika Collection.

The work is seen as representative of early modern Japanese genre painting; some consider it the earliest work of ukiyo-e. In 1955 it was designated a National Treasure of Japan and given the official name Shihon Kinjichaku-shoku Fuzoku-zu (紙本金地著色風俗図).

The 94-×-274.8-centimetre (37.0 × 108.2 in) byōbu screen depicts a scene in which eleven male and female figures amuse themselves. On the left, a blind man and some women play shamisens before a four-panel byōbu screen with a landscape painted on it. To their right a group of men and women play a sugoroku board game.

The manner of brushstrokes indicate the anonymous painting is in the style of the Kyō Kanō () school. The activities of the figures in the Hikone screen display the traditional Four Arts of the Chinese Scholar. The clothing and personal items of the figures suggest the four seasons, as in traditional "four seasons pictures" (四季絵, shiki-e).

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