In the Conquest of Ōshū Province, Lord Minamoto Yoritomo Captures the Fortress of Takadachi (Minamoto Yoritomo kō Ōshū seibatsu Takadachi no shojō o kōraku su)

This 1868 ōban color woodblock [triptych](/glossary/triptych) by Utagawa Kuniteru II, held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (accession sc162685), depicts Minamoto no Yoritomo — founder of the Kamakura shogunate (1192-1333) — capturing the fortress of Takadachi during his conquest of Ōshū Province in 1189. The campaign, which destroyed the Northern Fujiwara state at Hiraizumi and consolidated Minamoto rule over northeastern Japan, ended with the death of Yoritomo's younger brother Yoshitsune at Koromogawa near Hiraizumi — an episode that became one of the most enduring tragic narratives of medieval Japanese literature and a standard subject for [musha-e](/glossary/musha-e) (warrior print) designers throughout the Edo period.