Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡芳年) (artist 04/30/1839 – 06/09/1892)
Wife of Kawase (Kawase sore no tsuma - 河瀬某の妻), No. 18 (第十八) from the Yamato Newspaper series Biographies of People Today (Kinsei Jimbutsu Shi - 近世人物誌)
1888
9.125 in x 13.625 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Yoshitoshi ga (芳年画)
Publisher: Yamato Shinbunsha
やまと新聞社
Marks 606 - seal 25-053
Date: Meiji 21, 3rd month, 24th day
明治廿一年 三月 廿四日
National Diet Library
Waseda University
Tokyo Metropolitan Library
Shizuoka Prefectural Library
National Museum of Japanese History
Lyon Collection - another print from this series: wife of the last shōgun
Lyon Collection - another print from this series: Nakamura Shikan's wife
Lyon Collection - another print from this series: Muraoka
Lyon Collection - another print from this series: the wrestler Tanafuji Tarō
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College There are at least 20 prints in this series of which the Lyon Collection owns five.
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The date is shown in red ink at the top of the print. It is read from right to left: 明治廿一年 三月 廿四日
The series title (近世人物誌) can also be translated as 'Early modern biographies'.
The publication is referred to as the Yamato Shimbun supplement (やまと新聞附録). The issue number (号数) is '18'.
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There had been a prohibition against portraying contemporary events prior to the Meiji Restorations. However, in the 1870s newspapers began to appear with some degree of impunity. Sarah E. Thompson noted in Undercurrents in the Floating World: Censorship and Japanese Prints on page 88 that a special kind of nishiki-e known as 'newspaper prints' also began to appear. "Although these prints derived their content from the newspapers, they were printed and sold separately. They may sometimes have been used as color supplements for the "small" newspapers aimed at a popular audience. A typical "newspaper print" included a logo with the name of the newspaper, a text derived from a recent article, and an artist's imaginary rendition of the scene. The articles selected for illustration were often tales of exemplary moral behavior, but they also included lurid crime scenes and even ghost stories related as factual events."
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Shinichi Segi wrote on page 154 in Yoshitoshi: The Splendid Decadent: "Also portrays Danjūrō in the Personalities of Recent Times series, which the actor much admires. Completes twentieth and final portrait of Personalities of Recent Times series; adds full-color print cover, and has the set bound in book form."
On page 132 Segi wrote: "Over the two-year period from 1887 to 1888, Yoshitoshi produced his last and most accomplished set of "newspaper prints" as irregular supplements to the Yamato Shimbun. The full set of twenty prints... was later bound in one volume, with the additions of a title plate... The series as a whole shows Yoshitoshi's mature style of figuration based on careful drawing from models. The line work is masterful, and the exactingly balanced choice of colors employs the bright, imported aniline dyes sparingly, as points of compositional accent. The subjects were people in the news, and persons who helped shape modern Japan."
Yamato Shinbunsha (大和新聞社) (publisher)
Meiji era (明治時代: 1868-1912) (genre)
Historical - Social - Ephemera (genre)