# Rats and rice bales

- By: Katsushika Hokusai 葛飾北斎 (1760-1849)
- Date: 1843
- Medium: Ink and color on silk
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: H x W (image): 91.5 × 30 cm (36 × 11 13/16 in)
- Culture: Japanese
- Credit line: Gift of Charles Lang Freer
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://asia.si.edu/object/F1904.132/)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/d9737a1340895df850a5f29fd8581c63.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Rice bales are traditional emblems of wealth in pictures of the popular god Daikoku, one of the Seven Gods of Good Fortune. Daikoku is not shown, but his association with this symbol of wealth, which he usually protects, may be one of many meanings embedded in this unusual picture. Perhaps it represents the fragility of accumulated wealth or possibly competition for survival among social groups or classes. This image may have expressed such meanings more vividly in the aftermath of the devastating Tenpo famine (1833-36).