Utagawa Yoshitora
Foreign Soldiers from Five Countries at the Port of Yokohama

Name: Foreign Soldiers from Five Countries at the Port of Yokohama
Brand: Utagawa Yoshitora
Price: 1250 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Foreign Soldiers from Five Countries at the Port of Yokohama Color woodcut triptych, c. 1860's Signed in the block lower left corner Signed: "Ichimosai Yoshitora ga" Condition: Mounted to a rose colored silk backing (stable) Staining (visible) in the joining of the right and center sheets Colors very slightly faded Image size: 15 3/8 x 31 3/8 inches (triptysch sheets joined to make one print) The 1854 Treaty of Kanagawa opened Japan to the West. Curiosity about the never-before-seen foreigners spurred a market in Yokohama-e (Yokohama prints), named for the area to which foreign dignitaries and merchants were confined. Yoshitora became one of the best known and most active artists of the Yokohama-e school. Sent to Radecki Galleries for conservation. 5/18/10 Info & 8 x 10 glossy sent to A. J. Mourek Artist bio in file (Y) 4/27/2012 Sent information to Anthony Mourek and jpeg Utagawa Yoshitora (歌川芳虎) was a designer of ukiyo-e Japanese woodblock prints and an illustrator of books and newspapers who was active from about 1850 to about 1880. He was born in Edo (modern Tokyo), but neither his date of birth nor date of death is known. However, he was the oldest pupil of Utagawa Kuniyoshi who excelled in prints of warriors, kabuki actors, beautiful women, and foreigners (Yokohama-e). He may not have seen any of the foreign scenes he depicted. Yoshitora was prolific: he produced over 60 print series and illustrated over 100 books. In 1849 he produced an irreverent print called Dōke musha: Miyo no wakamochi ("Funny Warriors—Our Ruler's New Year's Rice Cakes"), which depicts Oda Nobunaga, Akechi Mitsuhide, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi making mochi rice cakes for the shōgun Tokugawa Ieyasu. A poem by Sawaya Kōkichi accompanies it, reading "Kimi ga yo wo tsuki katametari haru no mochi" ("Tamping down the reign firm and solid like spring rice cakes"). Censors interpreted the print as a criticism of authority and had Yoshitora manacles for fifty days. Soon after Yoshitora was expelled from Kuniyoshi's studio, possibly due to the print, but he continued to produce illustrations prolifically. From the 1860s Yoshitora produced Yokohama-e pictures of foreigners amid rapid modernization that came to Japan after the country was opened to trade. He collaborated on a number of landscape series, and in the Meiji period that began in 1868 he also worked in newspapers. The last of his known works appeared in 1882. Courtesy Wikipedia

Creator:

Utagawa Yoshitora (Japanese)

Dimensions:

Height: 15.38 in (39.07 cm)Width: 31.38 in (79.71 cm)

Medium:

Woodcut

Period:

Mid-19th Century

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Fairlawn, OH

Reference Number: