Tosa school
Although trained by Kanō Naizen of the Kanō school, he was more influenced by the traditions of the Tosa school, and signed a late series of portraits of the Thirty-six Poetry Immortals (1640) commissioned by the "shōgun" Tokugawa Iemitsu for a temple as "the artist Matabei of the later current from Tosa Mitsunobu". His work is often regarded as a major influence on the developing "ukiyo-e" school of painting, which is possibly because of confusion with an ukiyo-e artist character with the same name (Ōtsu no Matabei) in a play by Chikamatsu. Also, he used often to be attributed as the painter of a famous early ukiyo-e screen known as the Hikone screen, but this is now considered incorrect. In fact his "patrons ... were so high in the social hierarchy that it is hard to believe that Matabei could have created the Ukiyo-e tradition", and he is better regarded as a "great independent artist of the Tosa tradition".