Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
Bai Sheng, the Daylight Rat, (Hakujisso Hakushō - 白日鼠白勝), from the series One Hundred and Eight Heroes of the Popular Shuihuzhuan (Tsūzoku Suikoden gōketsu hyakuhachinin no hitori - 通俗水滸伝豪傑百八人之一個)
ca 1827 – 1830
10 in x 14.875 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Publisher: Kagaya Kichiemon
(Marks 195 - seal 22-025)
Censor's seal: kiwame
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Tokyo National Museum
Lyon Collection - Yoshiharu print of Bai Sheng
Royal Museums of Art and History, Belgium (via Cultural Japan)
Art Institute of Chicago Hakujisso Hakushō was a bit of a shiftless fellow when he was talked into joining a group of thieves, i.e., members of the 108 Heroes. They get involved in a number of different escapades. In one they go to save the lives of two of their jailed cohorts. Hakujisso Hakushō, disguised as a snake charmer, puts his box of snakes to good use.
****
Inge Klompmakers wrote on page 90 of Of Brigands and Bravery : Kuniyoshi's Heroes of the Suikoden: "Hakujisso Hakushō is an idle fellow who receives handouts from various people to buy food. The seven bandits talk him into participating in a robbery of the governor's treasures and instruct him to set out barrels of wine when Seimenjū Yōshi and his soldiers pass by his home... Hakushō then makes out as if he is going to the village to sell wine, but Yōshi's soldiers, who had not enjoyed a drink for some time, immediately purchase a barrel from Hakushō. The wine is laced with a sleeping potion that causes the soldiers and Yōshi to fall into a deep slumber. The seven robbers, who have been hiding in the nearby bushes, creep up on the drugged troop and abscond with the governor's valuables. Hakushō is arrested but later in the novel the robbers help him to escape and together they proceed on to new adventures."
"In chapter 39 the Ryōsanpaku bandits, dressed as merchants and travellers, enter the village where Kohōgi Sōko and Shinkōtaiho Taisō... are imprisoned and soon to be beheaded. Inside the village walls the robbers reveal their true identity and a clash with the soldiers ensues. The heroes of Ryōsanpaku prove the stronger; Sōkō and Taisō are freed and avoid execution. Hakushō is disguised as a snake charmer during this attack and it is this scene that Kuniyoshi portrays in this print. Embroiled in a fight with a village soldier, Hakushō hold a box in his right hand filled with snakes that he plans to use in his struggle. Snakes that have already escaped fromt he box writhe around his body. The hero's upper torso is decorated with a large tattoo of a fire-breathing dragon, a fact not noted in the Shihu zhuan."
****
Illustrated in color with a full-page reproduction in Of Brigands and Bravery : Kuniyoshi's Heroes of the Suikoden by Inge Klompmakers, Hotei Publishing, 1998, p. 91.
****
There is another copy of this print in the Hachinohe Clinic Machikado Museum.
Kagaya Kichiemon (加賀屋吉右衛門) (publisher)
warrior prints (musha-e - 武者絵) (genre)
Suikoden (水滸傳) (genre)