This is one of 20 original paintings bought in 1904, by Charles Lang Freer, together with Six Tama Rivers and others, from Honma Kozo of the Honma family, who were wealthy merchants from Sakata, Yamagata Prefecture via the Japanese fine art dealer Kobayashi Bunshichi. Three women, including a mother with a child, are undergoing ritual purification by a Shinto priest wearing a red kariginu (informal clothes worn by the nobility from the Heian period onwards) on the left-hand side of the picture. The A Shinto Priest, Three Women and a Child is performed on May 3 each year at the Chikuma-jinja Shrine, Maibara-shi, Shiga Prefecture. It is said that women would follow behind a mikoshi portable shrine while wearing as many cooking pots as the number of their former lovers. From its depiction in the Tales of Ise and other sources, the event seems to have been widely known in the capital Kyoto by the Heian period, and it is counted as one of Japan‘s three strangest festivals. For the signature and seal of this work, Hokusai indicated “Toyo.” The painting is therefore presumed to have been commissioned by someone from Omi Province (today's Shiga Prefecture).