Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
Taira no Koremochi (余吾将軍平維茂), aka Taira Koreshige, battles the female demon Kijo from the series A Mirror of Warriors from our Country (Honchō musha kagami - 本朝武者鏡)
1855
10.25 in x 15 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese color woodblock print
Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Artist's seal: kiri
Publisher: Tsujiokaya Bunsuke
(Marks 548 - seal 21-228)
Tōken (東建) Corporation
Victoria and Albert Museum "The event depicted in this selection is drawn from the nō play Momijigari (Maple Viewing). Taira Koremochi (here called Taira Koreshige) is dispatched by secret imperial order to Mount Togakuchi to find the female demon, Kijo. On the way he meets a beautiful woman who invites him to join her maple-viewing party. He joins in; before before long and after too much sake he falls into a deep sleep. The mountain god reveals to him in a dream that the woman is in fact Kijo in disguise. He wakes up suddenly as the female demon approaches him in her true form. Springing to his feet, he unsheathes his sword and kills her."
Illustrated in and quoted from: Heroes and Ghosts: Japanese Prints by Kuniyoshi 1797-1861 by Robert Schaap, Hotei Publishing, 1998, p. 114, no. 105.
Listed in Robinson as S87.5.
****
This copy in the Lyon Collection differs from the copy in the Victoria and Albert Museum which shows both the aratame and u seals along the lower left edge of the print. The u seal indicates the 'year of the hare' 4, i.e., 1855. The Lyon Collection print show neither of the censor seals. Neither does the copy at the Tōken (東建) Corporation. The differences between these copies are proof that there were at least two different editions of this print.
Tsujiokaya Bunsuke (辻岡屋文助) (publisher)
warrior prints (musha-e - 武者絵) (genre)
Yūrei-zu (幽霊図 - ghosts demons monsters and spirits) (genre)
Taira no Koremochi (平維茂) (role)