Katsukawa Shuntei (勝川春亭) (artist 1770 – 1820)

Yorimitsu (頼光) and his men (Suetake - 末武, Kintoki - 金時 and Sadamitsu - 定光) killing the monster of Oeyama, Shuten-dōji [酒呑童子] - these are the middle and right-hand panels of a triptych

Print

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Date:ca 1809 – 1813
Dimensions:20.5 in x 15 in (Overall dimensions) Inscription:Signed: Shuntei ga (春亭画)
Censor's seal: kiwame
Links Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (complete) - dated to ca. 1813-18
Maizuru City (via Ritsumeikan University) - right panel only
Maizuru City (via Ritsumeikan University) - center panel only
Vegder's wonderful article on this theme
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (two right panels)
Maizuru City Itoi Collection - the left-hand panel of the triptych only (via Ritsumeikan University) Description:What is the significance, if any, is there in the black and white lattice-like fabric which Shuten-dōji is wearing?

There is a Kunisada print of Shuten-dōji looking down at a beautiful maiden who is holding a ceremonial New Year's container of sakè at the Maizuru City Ito Library. It was posted originally by Ritsumeikan University which said that the source was a kabuki play performed in ca. 1815, starring Ichikawa Danjūrō VII. We have added two jpegs to this page: one shows that Kunisada print and the other from 1819 is by Kuniyasu. Both show the same lattice-like, black and white fabric. Did this motif first appear with the stage production or does it predate this period? And, does it have any special significance? We hope to resolve these questions in time. But, one thing we do know, is that this clothing pattern appears repeatedly over quite a few decades, well into the 1850s.

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Shuten-dōji, a name which can be translated as 'Drunken Baby', is holding onto an incredibly large black and red lacquer bowl from which he would have imbibed. It is decorated with a large kanji character, which, as yet, we have not translated.

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The time-worn copy of these two panels in the collection of Ritsumeikan University shows a publisher's seal for Hiranoya Chōemon (Marks 112 - seal 02-055) below the artist's name on the right-hand panel. However, this example from the Lyon Collection shows no publisher's seal with only an oddly shaped patch of green where the seal was clearly intended.

One of the great charms of the prints in the Lyon Collection is not only their superb coloring, but also the exotically beautiful oxidation on the original pinks of the monster's robe and on the faces of the men who are attacking him on the left.

The same two panels in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston also gives the publisher as Hiranoya Chōemon. But its right-hand panel is so dramatically trimmed that the artist's signature doesn't even appear there. However, the print to the left (actually the middle panel of the triptych) does show this publisher's seals. Yet again no such seal appears on the comparable print in that of the Lyon Collection.

Yuriko Iwakiri gives the dates ca. 1809-13 for this triptych. Ritsumeikan University dates it at 1818.

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Note: Publisher and censor seals (and signatures, etc.) were typically carved into the keyblock at the outset - although it is possible to take a carved block and mortise it for a patch planed level with the surface of the block and carve that patch with a publishers seal, it's a difficult and involved process. Taking a gouge and removing the publisher's seal part of the block would take about 15 seconds - the sort of thing I'd do if I were a publisher selling my blocks to someone else? (mrl)

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Illustrated in:

1) 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, #99, p. 42.

2) Japanese Warrior Prints by Yuriko Iwakiri and James King, Hotei Publishing, 2007, #82, p. 157. (The triptych illustrated here is from the collection of the Nagoya City Museum.)

The authors wrote: "...Shuntei's treatment of the encounter between Minamoto no Yorimitsu (Raikō), his shitennō and the monster Shutendōji gives short-shrift to Raikō and his retainers. Instead, it highlights, in an almost comic way, the monster Shutendōji and his costume, Shuntei's innovation here is in portraying the monster as half-ogre/half-human. Earlier versions of this subject maintain a strict division between the human heroes and zoomorphic demon. Shuntei created a new iconographic tradition with this composition, and his lead would be followed by, among others, Utagawa Kuniyoshi in a triptych of the same subject given the title 'Raikō and His Retainers Attacking Shutendōji' (1851; published by Amatsu)."

"Particularly effective is Shuntei's positioning of Shutendōji's enormous head in the right sheet with the remainder of the recumbent figure spread across the other two panels of the triptych. He looks completely untroubled by his assailants, much to his detriment later."
Related entities warrior prints (musha-e - 武者絵) (genre)
Yūrei-zu (幽霊図 - ghosts demons monsters and spirits) (genre)
Hiranoya Chōemon (平野屋長右衛門) (publisher)
Minamoto no Yorimitsu or Raikō (源頼光: 948-1021) (role)
Shuten-dōji (酒呑童子) (role)

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