Minamoto Yorimitsu in Mount Ashigara (Minomoto Yorimitsu Ashigarayama iri no zu)

This 1861 color woodblock print is an oban triptych by Ichieisai Yoshitsuya (Utagawa Yoshitsuya), held by the Art Institute of Chicago (accession number 1995.206.42, acquired through the Mr. and Mrs. Hubert Fischer Fund). The Japanese title, Minomoto Yorimitsu Ashigarayama iri no zu, translates as "Picture of Minamoto Yorimitsu Entering Mount Ashigara," and the composition depicts the legendary military commander Minamoto no Yorimitsu (Raikō, 948-1021), whose adventures in the mountains of central Japan with his Four Heavenly Kings (shitennō) became one of the most enduring martial-legendary cycles in Japanese art and theatre. Mount Ashigara, on the modern Kanagawa-Shizuoka border, was traditionally associated with the wild boy Kintarō, who according to legend was discovered there by Yorimitsu and grew up to become one of the Four Heavenly Kings under the name Sakata no Kintoki. As an oban triptych in color, the print presents the action across three joined full-size sheets, producing a panoramic battle or mountain scene of the sort that became the signature format of the late-Edo Utagawa-school musha-e tradition that Yoshitsuya had inherited from his teacher Utagawa Kuniyoshi. The print is a strong example of Yoshitsuya's mature warrior-print practice and is part of the Art Institute of Chicago's substantial holdings of Utagawa-school musha-e from the Bakumatsu period.