The daughter of the famous calligrapher Fujiwara no Yukinari sits at a low table and is startled by a mischievous cat who has scrambled across the table chasing a butterfly, sending her brushes and painting flying. The cartouche at top left mentions how, after falling asleep while painting butterflies, she is awakened by her cat jumping on her painting. According to popular belief, exceptional paintings could come to life and so in this print, her cat is fooled by the painting, which seems too realistic. The source of this subject is a writing by the famous Chinese classic by Master Zhuang who dreams that he is transformed into a butterfly, but the dream is so vivid that he no longer knows whether he is a man dreaming of being a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming of being a man. All these references are subtly interwoven in this Kuniyoshi print.

Another impression of the same print is in the collection of The British Museum, museum no. 2008,3037.15624, go to:
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_2008-3037-15624