PRINT

This Edo ukiyo-e sheet by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) is catalogued simply as "Print" in the records of the Harvard Art Museums, which holds the impression. Kuniyoshi was one of the leading designers of the Utagawa school during the first half of the nineteenth century, and he is now best remembered for his warrior prints (musha-e) depicting heroes from Japanese and Chinese legend, including the tattooed outlaws of the Suikoden and the samurai of the Genpei and Heike wars. Alongside this body of warrior imagery, he produced a wide range of other ukiyo-e: kabuki actor portraits, landscapes in the manner pioneered by Hokusai and Hiroshige, comic prints, prints of cats and other animals, and bijin-ga of fashionable women. Without a confirmed series title or date, this particular impression cannot be securely placed within his oeuvre, but the attribution to Kuniyoshi situates it firmly in the mainstream of Edo woodblock production of the 1820s-1850s. Like other ukiyo-e of the period, the sheet would have been produced collaboratively: Kuniyoshi designed the image, a block carver translated his drawing onto cherrywood blocks, a printer pulled successive color impressions in registration, and a publisher commissioned, marketed, and distributed the result. For collectors and scholars, even uncatalogued sheets retain value as documents of Kuniyoshi's broad commercial output and of the print culture of late Edo Japan. The work is held at the Harvard Art Museums under object number 210030.