Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)

Favorite Customs of the Present Day [Tōsei fūzoku kō - 当盛風俗好] - left-hand panel of a triptych - the title is on the right-hand panel

Print

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Date:ca 1850
Dimensions:8 in x 10 in (Overall dimensions) Medium:Japanese color woodblock print
Inscription:Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Links Metropolitan Museum of Art (ōban triptych) - dated to ca. 1850
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (ōban triptych) - dated to the early 1830s
Rhode Island School of Design - dated to ca. 1844
Philadelphia Museum of Art - dated to ca. 1842 Description:This appears to be a later chūban copy of the left panel of an oban triptych. The original is entitled Tōsei fūzoku kō (当盛風俗好). This can be found in a cartouche on the far right panel. The publisher was Enomotoya Kichibei, but unlike the triptych in Boston there is neither a publisher's seal nor a censor's seal here.

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This copy and the original both show a design of yajirobei (彌次郎兵衛) balancing toys on the lower half of her clothing. However, there are differences with the patterns on the obi. In the original print there are doll-like figures seen full-on. In this aizuri-e in the Lyon Collection that figure has been modified to a mere pattern design.

There is another copy of the full triptych at the Tokyo National Museum.

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The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston dates their full triptych to the 1830s. The Rhode Island School of Design gives a date of ca. 1844 for their oban copy of this print.

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Illustrated:
1) in color in 原色浮世絵大百科事典 (Genshoku Ukiyoe Daihyakka Jiten), vol. 3, p. 12, #4.

2) in color in Japanese Illustrations; a History of the Arts of Wood-cutting and Colour Printing in Japan by Edward Fairbrother Strange, George Bell and Sons, 1907, plate 6, with the description on page 54. Strange wrote: "Of Kuniyoshi personally nothing is recorded, except that he also lived a life of dissipation, and was "tattooed on his back." Plate VI is a good example of his work; an uncommon but charming scheme of colour occasionally used also by Kunisada and Yeisen: apple-green is sometimes employed in combination with the blues and red. Utagawa Kuniyoshi also used the signatures Ichiyūsai and Chō-ōrō, but always in combination with his own name."
Related entities blue prints (aizuri-e - 藍摺絵) (genre)
beautiful woman picture (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)
Enomotoya Kichibei (榎本屋吉兵衛) (publisher)

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