Built complexes and districts; streets; banners; women; men (male humans); palanquins; processions; floats (vehicles); soldiers; kimonos; trees; fans (costume accessories); blinds (coverings); hairstyles; hats
A grand summer festival with a parade of palanquins and floats was staged on the 15th day of the 6th month to celebrate the Mountain Deity (Sanno) of Hie Shrine who had protected Edo Castle since 1478. Ota Dokan (1432-86), the military governor of...
Six women in the foreground are guards, uniformly dressed in thick black robes and protective headgear. They are responsible for protecting the Ooku evacuees whenever there is a fire or other disturbance. Several carry halberds / naginata sparks,...
group portrait; princes; women; kimonos; hairstyles; men (male humans); hair ornaments; flowers (plants); swords; toys (recreational artifacts); children (people by age group); banners; blinds (coverings); porches; carriages (vehicles)
The emperor appears at far left dressed in traditional court robes surrounded by his female attendants, some of whom are helping wheel a baby carriage and toy horses into the palace chamber. Being published in May 1878, this seems like a...
women; children (people by age group); men (male humans); swords; kimonos; costume; shoes (footwear); hairstyles
Choko and Chorei were two brothers who looked after their aged mother. One day Choko was bringing a cabbage home for their mother when he was set upon by robbers. Finding he had nothing to give them, they had decided to kill him but agreed to wait...
The book entitled "The Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety" was written by the Chinese scholar Guo Jujing during the Yuan Dynasty. The book recounts the extremes to which twenty-four sons and daughters go to honor their elders. This type of print...
Kintaro, also called Kaidomaru, was raised in the wilderness of Mt. Ashigara by Yamauaba. Supposedly he could speak animal languages and is often depicted with animals (see prints 93.6.10 and 93.3.39 for treatments of Kintaro's youth.) As a young...
legends (folk tales); men (male humans); swords; kimonos
While hunting Taira no Koremochi came upon a princess and her attendants in the woods. At their invitation he joined them, and after feasting and drinking fell asleep. In a dream he was warned that the princess was in fact Kijo, a demon, who...
A woman, slightly bent over, grasps her hair at the river's edge. Kiyohime was the daughter of an innkeeper at the village of Masago. Anchin was a devout monk at Dojo Temple on the banks of the Hidaka river. Each year Anchin stayed at Kiyohime's...
portrait; men (male humans); robes (main garments); stringed instruments (musical instruments); biwa; women; trees
After the Hogen Rebellion in 1156, the courtier and musician Fujiwara no Moronaga (1137-1192) was exiled to the island of Shikoku. That autumn he consoled himself with a visit to Mt. Miyaji. Yoshitoshi depicts Fujiwara no Moronaga playing a biwa by...
legends (folk tales); women; kimonos; lanterns; children (people by age group); fusuma; interior spaces; foxes (animals)
An image of a woman, with a fox's head (seen through a screen) walking through a door, leaving her child behind in the house. Foxes, or kitsune, are mysterious, magical creatures with powers many times greater than those of badgers. Sometimes...
An image of a beautiful woman and an old crone with a lamp made of peony flowers. The Peony Lantern is a ghostly romance adapted from an old Chinese tale by the novelist Encho in 1884. The chilling story was extremely popular and was dramatized...
portrait; men (male humans); robes (main garments); stringed instruments (musical instruments); biwa; women; trees
After the Hogen Rebellion in 1156, the courtier and musician Fujiwara no Moronaga (1137-1192) was exiled to the island of Shikoku. That autumn he consoled himself with a visit to Mt. Miyaji. Yoshitoshi depicts Fujiwara no Moronaga playing a biwa...
In China and Japan, the constellations Vega and Altair are called the Weaver Maiden and the Herdsman. Legend says that after Shokiyo, the Weaver Maiden, fell in love with and married Kengi, the Herdsman, she became distracted and failed in her duty...
When only eleven years old, Michizane composed his first poem in Chinese. The plum blossom was Michizane's favorite flower, and he would often write about its fragile petals and delicate fragrance. Here the artist has depicted the young poet...
Shiei caught a red carp which he released in his pond. He fed it well, and it grew to enormous size. One day the carp spoke to him and promised to carry him to heaven. Here Shiei, dressed in a green Chinese robe, has mounted the fish and is carried...
folk tales; women; kimonos; grasses (plants); birds (animals)
Tamamo no mae was the beautiful and learned concubine of the Emperor Toba. One evening during a banquet, the wind rose and the lights went out, and the emperor became ill. The court magician declared this the sorcerous work of the concubine, who...
A woman, in a flower-covered red robe, dances, surrounded by small flames. Princess Yaegaki found herself in as difficult a situation as Romeo and Juliet, with whom this story from the play Honcho Nijushiko, or Twenty-four Examples of Filial Piety,...
mythology (literary genre); children (people by age group); men (male humans); mirrors; robes (main garments); hats; kimonos; supernatural
An image of a child watching a scene in a mirror, held by a demon. Back to back print. As Michizane was about to die, he ascended Mt. Tempai in Kyushu to declare his innocence of political corruption charges and to beseech the gods to clear his...
Back to back print. A man in a blue kimono and hakama stands and reaches for his sword at his side, while a woman in voluminous robes lies at his feet on the ground.
Kusunoki Masatsura (1326-1348) was one of those samurai doomed to a brief life...
