A painter of the mid-Edo period. Born the eldest son of a greengrocer wholesaler in the Nishiki-koji district of Kyoto, he studied the methods of the Kano and Korin schools and of the Chinese Yuan and Ming dynasties while running the family business. The name Jakuchu is thought to have been given to him by his Zen teacher, the priest Daiten. At forty (1755) he handed the business to his younger brother and devoted himself entirely to painting. Jakuchu showed no interest whatever in worldly affairs beyond painting, and never took a wife or had children. He left few landscapes, building instead a wholly distinctive manner in closely observed, decorative bird-and-flower painting and in ink monochrome.