Yoshida Chuzaemon Kanesuke 吉田忠左衛門兼亮 / Gishi shijushichi zu 義士四十七図

Yoshida Chuzaemon Kanesuke of the Gishi Shijushichi-zu series completes the forty-seven ronin portrait documentation with another loyal warrior whose individual face Gekko invented within the constraints of the historical and iconographic framework he had established across the series. Yoshida's portrait, like each of the others, contributed to an argument about collective loyalty as Japan's defining virtue—an argument that resonated powerfully with the Meiji era's investment in the values of loyalty and self-sacrifice.