The Third Month from the series 'Genji in the Twelve Months'

The Third Month from the series 'Genji in the Twelve Months', dated 1855 in the Victoria and Albert Museum catalogue, is an Edo ukiyo-e by Utagawa Kunisada from his prolonged engagement with the inaka Genji property. The Third Month corresponds to early spring, traditionally associated with cherry blossom viewing in the Japanese lunar calendar, and the print frames its Genji subject - Mitsuuji or one of his retinue - inside that seasonal context. Twelve-month series were a standard structural device in Edo ukiyo-e, allowing publishers to issue paired sheets for the same buyers month after month, with cumulative collectibility. Kunisada had been illustrating Ryutei Tanehiko's Nise Murasaki inaka Genji since 1829, and even after the novel's publication ceased in 1842 with Tanehiko's death and the Tempo Reforms, the property continued to drive print sales for the rest of Kunisada's life. The 1855 dating places the sheet at the height of his late style: long-faced figures with narrow eyes, intricately patterned robes, and the dense polychrome printing that the Edo polychrome blockmakers had perfected. The seasonal cartouche above the figure typically integrated calligraphic poems or labels identifying the lunar month. The V&A's impression contributes to a substantial corpus of mid-1850s Kunisada Genji prints scattered across Western institutions, and it illustrates how thoroughly the inaka Genji subject had been domesticated as a vehicle for seasonal bijinga and yakusha-e for buyers of Edo woodblock prints.