Hirai Gohō (b. 1884) 
Immortal Liu Haichan 
Japan, c. 1912–1925 
Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk 
Gift of Terry Welch, 2021 (2021-03-075)

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Liu Haichan was a pseudo-historical figure believed to live in China during the tumultuous Five Dynasties period (907–979), when a series of short-lived kingdoms competed for the country. According to legend he pursued a successful political career, rising to the highest levels of office. However, while he was a traveling a strange man struck up a conversation with him. The man asked Liu for ten eggs and ten coins. When Liu complied, the man stacked the eggs one on top of the other, with a coin between each. Liu exclaimed “How precarious!” to which the man replied that Liu’s political aspirations made his life even more precarious. Thereupon, Liu realized he was talking not to an ordinary man, but an immortal. He abandoned his success and took the man as his teacher, becoming a master of alchemical meditation and ultimately attaining immortality himself. 
 
Known in Japan as Gama sennin (“toad immortal”), Liu was a familiar subject due to a famous—and often copied—painting by the Chinese monk–artist Yan Hui (late 13th century) kept in the Buddhist temple Chion-in in Kyoto. However, Gohō’s depiction varies from the standard composition, instead presenting an intensely psychological image of the immortal with his eyes closed in deep contemplation. The three-legged toad upon his head is part of Liu’s iconography. Over time, many folk stories developed around it; its original symbolism is not entirely clear, but it might have had to do with alchemical meditation.