Ike no Taiga and his wife, Tokuyama Gyokuran, devoted their lives to literary and artistic activities and had an unconventional partnership in the patriarchal Confucian society of eighteenth-century Kyoto. Gyokuran kept her maiden name and was financially independent; she earned a living by managing a teahouse. The foreword and the first waka poem at the right of this scroll, written by Gyokuran, indicate that she was a better waka poet than Taiga. The poems document their intimate relationship, and the calligraphic styles harmonize visually, even as Taiga’s larger writing with strong ink variation contrasts with Gyokuran’s signature style of thin, swirling lines.