Lit. "fan painting." A painting either directly on a fan *uchiwa 団扇, or on a round format which could later be attached to one. The earliest examples of uchiwa-e in Japan are paintings from the Kamakura period which were influenced by Chinese Song and Yuan painting styles.
There are extant fan-shaped paintings by Sesshū 雪舟 (1420-1506) but the genre was popularized much later by Ogata Kōrin 尾形光琳 (1658-1716) and other *Rinpa 琳派 artists. A famous example by Kōrin is the uchiwa-e painting Yatsuhashi-zu 八橋図 in the Hatakeyama Kinenkan 畠山記念館 in Tokyo. There are also uchiwa chirashi-zu 団扇散図 screens at Shōjuraigōji 聖衆来迎寺 in Kyoto (see *senmen byōbu 扇面屏風) where round fan paintings are scattered across large folding screen surfaces.
Throughout the Edo period, uchiwa were woodblock-printed with the faces of famous *kabuki 歌舞伎 actors and beautiful women of the *Yoshiwara 吉原. Uchiwa-e, painted with landscape scenery and bird-and-flower themes, became popular in the 19th century. The shape of the uchiwa became wider at this time. Edo period uchiwa were used constantly in daily life, and therefore few remain, but most of the popular *ukiyo-e 浮世絵 artists of the time painted or designed for the fan format.