The Plum Blossom that Flew on Lightning from Chikushino

This 1857 ōban woodblock print, titled "The Plum Blossom that Flew on Lightning from Chikushino," is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession number 2009.434.2) and forms part of Utagawa Yoshiharu's sequence of prints documenting the touring acrobatic troupe of Hayatake Torakichi during their celebrated Edo performances. The poetic title references the legend of the Chikushi plum (tobiume), the famous tree said to have flown miraculously from Kyoto to Dazaifu in Kyūshū to follow the exiled scholar Sugawara no Michizane in the early tenth century, suggesting that the print depicts an act in which the acrobats reenacted or alluded to this story through their performance. The 36.2 by 24.4 cm composition is in the vertical ōban format and demonstrates the close interweaving of acrobatic spectacle with literary and theatrical allusion that was a hallmark of mid-nineteenth-century Edo popular culture. The print is part of a related group of Yoshiharu Torakichi sheets acquired together by the Met in 2009 and is in the public domain.