Gozu Tennō (=Susanoo) and Inada-hime, from the series Lives of Heroes of Our Country (Honchō eiyū den)

Gozu Tennō (=Susanoo) and Inada-hime, from the series Lives of Heroes of Our Country (Honchō eiyū den), is a woodblock print ([nishiki-e](/glossary/nishiki-e)) by Utagawa Kuniteru I (Sadashige) made in Edo between 1847 and 1852 (Kōka 4 to Kaei 5) and now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (accession 11.39913, William Sturgis Bigelow Collection). The print depicts the encounter of Susanoo no Mikoto — the storm god of Shintō myth, identified syncretically here as Gozu Tennō, the cattle-headed deity of disease and pestilence — with Inada-hime, the maiden whom Susanoo is sworn to rescue from the eight-headed dragon Yamata no Orochi. The composition belongs to a major Bakumatsu genre of mythological hero prints ([musha-e](/glossary/musha-e) and rekishi-ga) which Kuniteru I, working in the established Utagawa school manner of his teacher Kunisada I (Toyokuni III), produced alongside actor prints and sumō-e. The print is signed Kuniteru ga and bears the censors' seals of Muramatsu and Yoshimura, anchoring it firmly to the late-Tenpō and Kōka-Kaei reforms of the Edo print trade. The MFA's catalogue records identify the artist explicitly as Utagawa Kuniteru I (Sadashige), the 1808-1876 designer trained under Kunisada I, distinguishing him from the Kuniteru II who is sometimes confused with him in lesser cataloguing systems.