Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
Kiitchi's daughter, Princess Minazuru (Kiitchi no musume Minazuru-hime 鬼一の娘みなずる姫) from the series One Hundred Poets from the Literary Heroes of Our Country (Honcho bunyu hyaku nin isshu - 本朝文雄百人一首)
ca 1842 – 1844
7 in x 9.75 in (Overall dimensions) Signed: Chōōrō Kuniyoshi ga
朝櫻樓国芳画
Seal: kiri in red below signature
Publisher: Murataya Tetsu (Marks 360 - seal 25-376)
Censor's seal: Muramatsu
British Museum
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Hankyu Culture Foundation Minazuru-hime is shielding a lantern from the wind with her sleeve. She fell in love with Minamoto no Yoshitsune when he was still a boy using the name Ushiwakamaru. In the puppet and kabuki theaters, in the play Kiichi Hōgen Sanryaku no Maki (鬼一法眼三略巻 'Kiichi Hōgen's Book of Strategic Secrets'), Minazuru is the daughter of Kiijchi Hōgen whose younger brothers are Ushiwakamaru and Kisanta. However, at the beginning of the play they were unaware of the familial relationships.
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Susan Matisoff, in an article entitled Deciphering the Code of Love..., writes about the late-Muromachi-period short story Minazuru in which the lady receives a letter from her lover Yoshitsune. First the women around her look at it, but can't make heads or tails of what it is saying. "Laughing over the incompetence of the man who would write such an incomprehensible letter, they are about to rip it to shreds without delivering it to Minazuru. However, Minazuru's nurse Rensei intercedes and delivers the letter." It turns out that Yoshitsune has written it in a way which he knows only Minazuru will understand.
Minazuru does understand that each line is an allusion to famous poem and she explains this to Rensei. As Matisoff explains it, Minazuru's reading could have gone something like this:
I want to draw close to you****
My heart yearns without limit
Perhaps my longing is unknown to you
Shall I rot into old age?
Notice how the shibori-dyed flying cranes of the bottom part of Minazuru's kimono are repeated by the birds among stylized clouds in the decorative poem card in the upper left. Her robe also displays snow-covered pines plus a different type of stylized cloud motif within which is another motif of turbulent waters or waves. The blue kanzashi hairpins are another iteration of the flying cranes. Subtle, but clearly intended.
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The text reads: 鬼一法眼の娘牛若になれそめ家の秘書三略の巻をぬすみ出し是を牛若におくる牛若の奥州へ行しを慕ひ陸奥まで下りしに終に藤倉といふ所の池へ入水して貞心をあらはす後に此事をきゝ義経なげきの余り一宇の寺を立てなんば寺といふ 時に十七才
[Note that all foreign languages are difficult to translate into English, even for accomplished linguists due to the depth of meaning, cultural references, use of idioms, etc. That said, it is even more difficult for machines to do this. However, because of our lack of understanding of the Japanese language we still use Google translate to get at the essence of what is being said.
Here is Google's translation as of October 9, 2025: "Oniichi Hogan's daughter, who had become acquainted with Ushiwaka, stole a scroll of the family's secretaries and sent it to Ushiwaka. She admired Ushiwaka's journey to Oshu and traveled down to Mutsu, where she eventually drowned herself in a pond called Fujikura, demonstrating her faithfulness. After hearing this, Yoshitsune was so upset that he built a temple and called it Namba-dera. At the time, he was 17 years old."
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This copy in the Lyon Collection differs somewhat from the ones in the British Museum. Their copies show a pinkish background at the lower part of Minazuru's robes, while the one here is blue. The delicate lines of the feet, especially her right foot are better defined than this one. And the kanji of the signature are much more clearly inked. These tell-tale elements would indicate that the print in the Lyon Collection is later than those of the other two examples cited.
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The red seal following the characters 時に十七才 does not appear in the edition at the Hankyu Cultural Foundation.
warrior prints (musha-e - 武者絵) (genre)
Murataya Tetsu (村田屋鉄) (publisher)