<i>A Picture of Masakiyo Conquering Korea</i> - (<i>Masakiyo sankan taiji</i> [<i>no</i>] <i>zu</i> - 正清三韓退治圖)

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡芳年) (artist 04/30/1839 – 06/09/1892)

A Picture of Masakiyo Conquering Korea - (Masakiyo sankan taiji [no] zu - 正清三韓退治圖)

Print


03/1864
9.5 in x 14 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Ikkaisai Yoshitoshi ga
一魁齋芳年画
Artist's seal: kiri
Publisher: Yamaguchiya Tōbei
(Marks 591 - seal not listed)
Combined censor and date seal: aratame and 3/1864
Tokyo Keizai University Library
Minneapolis Institute of Art Roger Keyes in his 1982 doctoral thesis on Yoshitoshi referred to this triptych as "Dan Niemon and a companion board a foreign ship during Masakiyo's invasion of Korea."

****

"On the surface this triptych illustrates the invasion of Korea by Katō Kiyomasa (1562-1611), a retainer of Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Here he is listed under the more usual name of Masakiyo... In actual fact it could be a veiled reference to incidents of 1863 when the English bombed Kagoshima harbour in revenge for the murder of the English merchant Charles Lennox Richardson (1834-62) in September 1862. The Japanese were beaten resoundingly by the English, but in Yoshitoshi's work the Satsuma clansmen emerge as victorious heroes, following a surprise attack on the Koreans."

Quoted from: Yoshitoshi: Masterpieces from the Ed Fries Collection, p. 67 - accompanied by a full-color illustration.

****

The blue cartouche in the left-hand panel reads 佐藤左馬之介義明 (Satō Samanosuke Yoshiaki).

****

Illustrated in color in The World of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (Tsukioka Yoshitoshi no Sekai - 月岡芳年の世界) by Susugu Yoshida, 2010, pp. 42-43, #28.
Yamaguchiya Tōbei (山口屋藤兵衛) (publisher)
warrior prints (musha-e - 武者絵) (genre)
mitate-e (見立て絵) (genre)
Historical - Social - Ephemera (genre)
Katō Masakiyo (加藤正清) (role)