Wada Koremasa and his followers rescuing Ashikaga Yoshiteru, from the series Newly Selected Records of the Taikō Hideyoshi (Shinsen Taikōki)
新撰太閤記
- Date:
- 1883
- Medium:
- Color woodblock print
- Source:
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
新撰太閤記
This 1883 [musha-e](/glossary/musha-e) by Utagawa Toyonobu, held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (accession sc186218, object 254986), depicts Wada Koremasa leading his followers in the dramatic effort to rescue Ashikaga Yoshiteru, the thirteenth Ashikaga shogun who was famously killed in 1565 during the Eiroku Incident when the Miyoshi clan stormed his Nijō palace residence in Kyoto. The episode belongs to the dense tapestry of late-Muromachi political violence that the Shinsen Taikōki used as backdrop for the rise of Hideyoshi, and Toyonobu's composition foregrounds Wada's loyal-retainer pose in the style favored by Meiji warrior-print designers: the figures are tightly framed in a confrontation moment, the costume detail is rendered with the careful attention demanded by the historical-narrative genre, and the bright aniline reds and purples set the print firmly within the early-Meiji color register. The Shinsen Taikōki's coverage of Yoshiteru's downfall and the parallel rise of Oda Nobunaga set up the larger narrative arc in which Hideyoshi would emerge as the leading unifier, and the print therefore functions as a key transitional scene within the series' biographical structure.
新撰太閤記
1883
Color woodblock print
尾州桶狭間合戦
December 25, 1882
Color woodblock print
新撰太閤記
1883
Color woodblock print
新撰太閤記
1883
Color woodblock print
Wada Koremasa and his followers rescuing Ashikaga Yoshiteru, from the series Newly Selected Records of the Taikō Hideyoshi (Shinsen Taikōki) (新撰太閤記) was created by Utagawa Toyonobu (歌川豊宣) in 1883.