Pictures with Letters (Moji-e) - Public domain dedication image

Iwasa Matabei (1578–1650) was a Japanese painter of the early Tokugawa period (1603–1867). Upon the defeat and suicide of his soldier-father, Araki Murashige, he took refuge in the Hongan Temple in Kyōto with his nurse and later assumed his mother’s family name, Iwasa. He studied painting with different masters, but nothing definite is known about them. Because Iwasa came to consider himself an heir to the tradition of the Tosa school of painting (stressing Japanese subjects and techniques), he may have studied under Tosa Mitsunori (1583–1638).