Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
Asahina Saburō Yoshihide (朝比奈三郎義秀) wrestling with two crocodiles at Kotsubo beach, Kamakura
1849
29.6 in x 14.4 in (Overall dimensions) Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Artist's seal: kiri
Publisher: Shimizuya Tsunejirō
(Marks 469 - seal 25-331)
Censors' seals: Kinugasa and Yoshimura
British Museum
Google map - Kotsubo highlighted in red - near Kamakura
Lyon Collection - an 1861 Kuniyoshi triptych related to this scene Timothy Clark wrote in Kuniyoshi from the Arthur R. Miller Collection, #28, p. 81: "When Yoriie visitied Kotsubo beach, Kamakura, he commanded the strongman Asaina Saburō to engage in a trial of strength with Wada Shinzaemon-no-jō Tsunemori. The version of the story on the print was written by Ōtei Umehiko, whom the who's who Gei'en ichiran of 1850 lists as a poet living in Iida-machi, Edo. His account relates that, at one point in the combat, Asaina rode his horse into the waves, whereupon a crocodile seized one of its back legs. Much to the consternation of the assembled retainers, Asaina immediately jumped into the sea and disappeared beneath the waves. Suddenly, he reappeared, grasping a crocodile under each arm and dragging them to the shore in an unprecedented display of strength.
It might be objected that crocodiles (wani) do not live in the sea and have legs, not flippers, but that does nothing to diminish Kuniyoshi's achievement in creating a stirring and memorable scene of combat between strongman and beast. His treatment of the waves surely echoes of Hokusai's 'Great Wave' print of ca. 1830-33."
This triptych is illustrated in color on pages 80-81.
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Another description:
"One day in 1200 when the shogun Minamoto no Yoriie and his followers went on a sightseeing trip to the sea at Kotsubo near Kamakura, Asahina... was asked to demonstrate his remarkable skill in swimming. Having swum several hundred metres, the strongman then dived into the sea and caught three crocodiles (only two are present in the print), which he proceeded to show to the assembly.
This subject can be found in illustrated books such as Ehon hanayoroi (A Picture Book of Flower Armor, 1756) by Kitao Tokinobu [北尾辰宣]. Earlier in about 1842-43, Kuniyoshi designed another triptych of the same subject, in which two of Yoriie's vassals watch Asahina from a boat... rather than a precipice."
Quoted from: Japanese Warrior Prints 1646-1905 by James King and Yuriko Iwakiri, p. 280. There is a color illustration on pp. 280-81. That example is from the collection of the Nagoya City Museum.
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Also illustrated:
1) in Ukiyo-e dai musha-e ten - 浮世絵大武者絵展 - (The Samurai World in Ukiyo-e), edited by Yuriko Iwakiri, Machida City Museum of Graphic Arts, 2003, #196, p. 70.
2) in a large color reproduction in Kuniyoshi: The Warrior Prints by B. W. Robinson, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1982, pl. 56. T218.
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This amazing design is justly famous, but known only in a handful of impressions. It is extremely rare. There is a full page illustration in Kuniyoshi: The Warrior Prints, plate 56. Robinson lists the publisher as Kiyomidzu-ya Tsunejirō.
warrior prints (musha-e - 武者絵) (genre)
Shimizuya Tsunejirō (清水屋常次郎) (publisher)
Asahina Saburō (朝比奈三郎) (role)