Great Victory of Our Troops at the Fierce Battle of the Ansong Ford (Anjo no watashi waga gun taisho no zu)
- Date:
- 1894/95
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print; oban triptych
- Source:
- Art Institute of Chicago
Great Victory of Our Troops at the Fierce Battle of the Ansong Ford, dated 1894 and held in the Art Institute of Chicago, depicts the Songhwan-Asan campaign of late July 1894, when Japanese forces forced a crossing of the Asan River and routed Qing defenders in the opening land engagements of the First Sino-Japanese War. Migita Toshihide treated this campaign in multiple senso-e, and the present sheet sits within the strongest institutional collection of his war prints outside Japan. As a Yoshitoshi student, he composed the river-crossing scene around a strong diagonal: Japanese troops moving from one side of the design to the other, the ford itself functioning as the central pictorial event, and the opposing forces collapsing on the far bank. Meiji prints of river crossings demanded a particular handling of water and reflected light, and Toshihide's draughtsmanship here keeps the surface of the river readable while still allowing the action to dominate. The Art Institute's record places the design among his 1894 output, when he was producing senso-e at high volume in response to the early campaigns of the war. The print belongs alongside his Songhwan and Pyongyang sheets within a larger Sino-Japanese War serial, and it demonstrates the technical and compositional consistency of his battle-print practice during the year that established his reputation as a senso-e designer.
Great Victory of Our Troops at the Fierce Battle of the Ansong Ford (Anjo no watashi waga gun taisho no zu) was created by Migita Toshihide (右田年英) in 1894/95.
