Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡芳年) -- OsakaPrints.com -- Japanese Ukiyo-e Woodblock and Modern Prints and Paintings

Background

The artist who is often called the last great master of ukiyo-e is Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡芳年) whose original name was Owariya Yonejirô. He also signed as Taiso Yoshitoshi 大蘇芳年 1839–1892). Highly skilled, imaginative, and innovative, Yoshitoshi worked from the end of the Edo period until more than two decades into the Meiji period over the course of a 40-year career. He witnessed the dying of the old feudal order and the embrace of Western culture and technology, which had a profound effect on Japanese society beginning with the signing of treaties opening up Japan to foreign trade in 1854. One senses this turmoil in much of Yoshitoshi's oeuvre as he sought to maintain previous cultural norms and artistic aims while also assimilating some of the new advances during Meiji "Enlightenment."

For more about this artist, see Tsukioka Yoshitoshi Biography.

Design

Lord Sadanobu, more widely known as Fujiwara Tadahira (藤原忠平, 880-949), was courtier and politician during the Heian period (794-1185). He is also known as Teishin-Kō (貞信公), Ko-ichijō Dono (小一条殿), and Ko-ichijō daijō-daijin. He served as regent under Emperor Suzaku (朱雀天皇) who ruled from 930 to 946. Tadahira was a kuge (Japanese noble) who is credited with writing and publishing Engishiki (Procedures of the Engi era, 延喜式), a compendium of rules and procedures for implementing ritsu (penal codes), ryō (administrative codes), and kyaku (supplementary laws). After Tadahira's death, his brother Fujiwara no Tadahira continued the work in 912, eventually completing it in 927. Tadahira was also one of the principal editors responsible for the development of the Japanese legal code known as Sandai-kyaku-shiki (Rules and Regulations of the Three Generations 三代格式). xxxxxxxxx

The text is by Bokuto Ryôko. According to John Stevenson (see ref. below, 2005, p. 32), it reads:
"He was a brother of Lord Shihei. A man of honest directness and intelligence, he was gradually promoted and eventually elevated to the highest rank of government officials, where he wielded unrivaled power. As he passed by the emperor's rooms in the South Palace one night, a phantom demon suddenly appeared and grabbed the end of his scabbard. Sadanobu unsheathed his sword and attacked the demon, which vanished."

Note that our impression have extensive burnishing of Lord Sadanobu's black robe (see detail-photo above made with oblique illumination).

Impressions of this design are various collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (3 imps., inv 11.37626, 11.39835, 11.39838); and Waseda University Theater Museum, Tokyo.

References:

Keyes, Roger: The Bizarre Imagery of Yoshitoshi: The Herbert R. Cole Collection. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1980.
Keyes, Roger: Courage and Silence. A Study of the Life and Color Woodblock Prints of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, 1839-1892 (vols. 1-2). Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, Dissertation, Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities, 1983.
Newland, Amy Reigle: The Hotei Encyclopeida of Japanese Woodblock Prints. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005, Vol. 2, pp. 499 and 530.
Roberts, Laurance: A Dictionary of Japanese Artists: Painting, Sculpture, Ceramics, Prints, Lacquer. Tokyo/New York: Weatherhill, 1976, p.204.
Segi, Shinichi: Yoshitoshi: The Splendid Decadent. (Trans. by Alfred Birnbaum) Tokyo/New York: Kodansha, 1985.
Stevenson, John: Yoshitoshi's One Hundred Aspects of the Moon. Redmond, San Francisco Graphic Society, 1992.
Stevenson, John: Yoshitoshi's Women: The Print Series Fuzoku Sanjuniso. Avery Press, 1986 (first ed.) and 1995 (rev. ed.).
Stevenson, John: Yoshitoshi's Thirty-Six Ghosts. New York: Weatherhill, 1983.
Stevenson, John: Yoshitoshi’s Strange Tales. Amsterdam: Hotei Publishing, 2005.
van den Ing, Eric and Schaap, Robert: Beauty & Violence: Japanese Prints by Yoshitoshi 1839-1892. Eindhoven: Haviland Press, and Amsterdam: Society for Japanese Arts, 1992.

Tsukioka YOSHITOSHI (月岡芳年)