(b Takanashi or Natori, Kai Prov. [now Yamanashi Prefect.], 1722; d Edo [now Tokyo], 1784). Japanese seal-carver and scholar. He was the son of a doctor, Yuken; he studied at the private school of the official physician to the Tokugawa shogunate, Takeda Choshun’in, but eventually abandoned his studies and went to Kyoto to pursue a career in the arts. The name Fuyo is taken from Fuyoho (Lotus Peak), the sobriquet of Mt Fuji (its shape is said to resemble a lotus bud). His studio name, Kantankyo, also means ‘lotus’. Ko seems to have been an abbreviation of his wife’s clan name, Kondo. In middle age, he apparently changed his name a number of times, possibly because of his indirect connection with the activities of his fellow-villager Yamagata Daini (1725–67), who was executed by the shogunate for his open devotion to the emperor.

• Ko Fuyo
  • Japan, §XVI, 20(i)(c): Authorship and thread seals
  • Japan, §XVI, 20(ii)(a): Kondai seals: c 1600–c 1780
  • Japan, §XVI, 20(ii)(b): Kotai seals, c 1750–c 1850
  • collections
    • Japan, §XVI, 20(iii): Seals: Connoisseurship and collecting
  • groups and movements
    • Japan, §XVI, 20(ii)(b): Kotai seals c 1750–c 1850
  • pupils
    • Aoki Mokubei
    • Katsu Shikin
    • Kimura Kenkado
    • Maegawa Kyoshu
    • So Shii
    • Zoroku
  • works
    • Japan, §VII, 2(vi)(e): Literati calligraphy: Painter–calligraphers