National Treasures & Important Cultural Properties
of National Institutes for Cultural Heritage, Japan

Among portraiture of samurai generals in monastic robes, a style emulating portraits of Zen priests was first established around 1263 following the death of Hōjō Tokiyori (1227–1263), the fifth shogunal regent of the Kamakura shogunate. He was painted in this style as a result of his family’s deep devotion to Zen practice. He belonged to the head branch of the Hōjō family, which continued to have such portraits made throughout the Kamakura period (1185–1333). This painting is thought to be one of them.

Andō En’e (1285–1343) was an influential samurai general under the Kamakura shogunate as a retainer of one the Rokuhara shogunal deputies. He was commonly known as Andō Jiuemon Sukeyasu. He practiced Zen as a disciple of Xijian Zitan (J. Seikan Sudon; 1249–1306), a Chinese priest who was the abbot of Engakuji Temple and Kenchōji Temple in Kamakura. En’e was a lay practitioner until his later years, when he joined the Buddhist priesthood and took the dharma name Nansō En’e. He then became the abbot of Chōrakuji Temple in Kōzuke Province (present-day Gunma Prefecture). His father was Andō Renshō (1240–1330), a retainer for the head branch of the Hōjō family.

Just as in portraits of Zen priests, the figure is seated in lotus position on a chair covered by a jacket (happi). The face is drawn in delicate but powerful strokes of ink with limited use of shading. The facial features in particular, show the difficulty of painting a portrait within a limited amount of time with the subject. En’e’s robe with small flowers on it is an extravagant imported textile that offers a glimpse of tastes for foreign goods at the time. An inscription is written at the top of the portrait. As this is a portrait of En’e when he was still a lay practitioner and not intended for a Zen priest, the inscription was not written by En’e himself. Instead, it was written by Mingji Chujun (J. Minki Soshun; 1262–1336), a venerated member of the Songyan and Yangqi lineages of the Linji (J. Rinzai) school, who came to Japan from China in Gentoku 1 (1329). Mingji became the abbot of Kenchōji Temple in Kamakura around spring in Gentoku 2 (1330). En’e asked Mingji to inscribe two paintings in addition to this one at the time: a portrait of his father Renshō (portrait of a deceased person) and a portrait of Zenni (1252–1325) (no longer extant), the abbot of Kumedadera Temple. The relationship between the inscription and the portrait’s subject is the same as for portraits meant to memorialize a deceased person. This painting has garnered attention as an exceptional portrait as well as for preserving the calligraphy of Mingji Chujun.