Parody of the story of Yoritomo releasing cranes at Yuigahama

A print attributed to Torii Kiyomitsu titled Parody of the Story of Yoritomo Releasing Cranes at Yuigahama, in which the Kamakura-period episode of Minamoto no Yoritomo's ceremonial release of cranes from the beach at Yuigahama is restaged as a contemporary mitate (parody) with substituted Edo-period figures. The historical episode: Minamoto no Yoritomo (1147-1199), the founder of the Kamakura shogunate, established the practice of releasing cranes at Yuigahama beach near Kamakura as a ritual act of merit-making, with paper labels attached to the legs of the released birds carrying his name and the date of release. Yuigahama, the south-facing beach of Kamakura, was the site of many of the formal ceremonies of the early Kamakura shogunate, and the crane-release became one of the canonical incidents of Yoritomo's biography. Edo [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) designers regularly reworked such founding-historical episodes as contemporary mitate, substituting Edo townspeople or fashionable Edo women for the original Kamakura warrior figures - the dislocation of the canonical adult subject into the everyday register of contemporary urban life supplying the print's wit. The Victoria and Albert Museum holds three sheets associated with this composition and dates the print to circa 1815, indicating that - like other late prints carrying the Kiyomitsu name - it was issued posthumously under his name or by a later Torii-school designer working in his line. The multi-sheet format suggests an original [triptych](/glossary/triptych) composition, with each sheet contributing one panel of the larger scene.