Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
No. 6 (六): Yoshida Sadaemon Kanesada (吉田定右エ門兼貞) from the series Stories of the True Loyalty of the Faithful Samurai (Seichū gishi den - 誠忠義士傳)
1847
9.75 in x 14 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Artist's seal: kiri
Publisher: Ebiya Rinnosuke
(Marks 040 - seal not listed)
Censor seals: Yoshimura and Muramatsu
Number 6: 六
Tokyo Metropolitan Library
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Waseda University
British Museum
Edo-Tokyo Museum
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg
Allentown Museum of Art
Muscarelle Museum of Art in Williamsburg, Virginia
The Pushkin State Museum
Walters Museum of Art
Hiroshige Museum of Art, Ena
Chiba City Museum of Art
Tokyo Fuji Museum (via Cultural Heritage Online) The dentate pattern on this print is a give away that it is a Chūshingura-themed prints. But not all prints devoted to this story show these designs. "The distinctive dentate pattern on the coats is an iconographical motif which represents the inescapable progress of day and night, symbolizing unfailing loyalty."
Quoted from: 'Mitate kokkei Chūshingura. Hiroshige's humorous parodies of the Loyal Retainers' by Pierre Wijermans and Henk Herwig, fn. 32, p. 73.
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The author of this text is Ippitsu-an (一筆庵誌).
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Illustrated in Kuniyoshi: The Faithful Samurai by David R. Weinberg, Hotei Publishing, 2000, #I.6.
warrior prints (musha-e - 武者絵) (genre)
Chūshingura (忠臣蔵 - 47 Rōnin) (genre)
Ebiya Rinnosuke (海老屋林之助) (publisher)