"At 3 am on July 29 a battle commenced and after five hours our troops were completely victorious" begins the text panel account of this print. Chikanobu depicts two officers leading the assault with the nation's flag held high. A Chinese canon in...
women; kimonos; hand mirrors; hair ornaments; hairstyles
A beauty applies powder to the back of her neck with a brush. She is using two mirrors to aid her, one before her and a hand mirror held behind her to reflect the back of her head into the first mirror. Fine lines are depicted in the hair reflected...
A bride is being escorted to her wedding accompanied by several married women. They are passing a table with an arrangement of auspicious figurines and floral elements. Two figurines are Jo and Uba, an elderly couple who symbolize longevity and...
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...
dolls; tables (support furniture); women; kimonos; hairstyles; hair ornaments; gardens; Built complexes and districts; streams
A group of women stand on the banks of a stream. One pushes a small raft loaded with food and drink across the stream with a pole towards two women who wait to receive it. In the background, houses on pilings line the edges of the steam and a...
dolls; tables (support furniture); women; kimonos; hairstyles; hair ornaments; gardens; Built complexes and districts; streams
A group of women stand on the banks of a stream. One pushes a small raft loaded with food and drink across the stream with a pole towards two women who wait to receive it. In the background, houses on pilings line the edges of the steam and a...
A man in ragged robes sits on the ground before a yellow-flowering bush watching sparrows flying above him. Sanekata was a poet and high-ranking nobleman of the Fujiwara clan. He died in exile in 994. Toward the end of his political career,...
A man in ragged robes sits on the ground before a yellow-flowering bush watching sparrows flying above him. Sanekata was a poet and high-ranking nobleman of the Fujiwara clan. He died in exile in 994. Toward the end of his political career,...
A sketch of two actors, Sakata Kintoki and Tsuchigumo in a play from the story of Raiko and the Earth Spider. In this tale, Raiko, while on a quest in search of a giant flying skull, found himself feeling ill and retired for the night. A servant...
A woman in an ornately patterned blue kimono stands before a flowering tree. A box is tucked into the edge of the red kimono she wears beneath the blue one; beneath this we see three white layers. She wears a cluster of gold flowers on each side of...
A woman, in distress, is jumping in a river. The moon is setting and two white herons rise from the water near her. The story behind the image is: When her father lost his money and was jailed, Chikako tried to win his release. To prove herself a...
women; men (male humans); kimonos; emperors; hats; blinds (curtains); knives
According to legend, the 16 year old Emperor GoKomatsu (1377-1433) greatly loved a woman whose family had ties to the former Southern Court in Yoshino, so that when she became pregnant, suspicions were raised by other imperial concubine about her...
acrobats; men (male humans); children (people by age group); boys; girls
According to this poster the Chiarini Italian Circus group would be performing at Akihabara in the Kanda District of Tokyo from the first of September 1886. While Japan had a long tradition of jugglers, acrobats and other circus-like public...
courtesans; trees; flowers (plants); women; children (people by age group); men (male humans); kimonos; Single Built Works; hairstyles; hair ornaments
An elegantly dressed Yoshiwara courtesan looks on while a little boy, held by his mother, ties a poem sheet to a blossoming branch. A servant peeks from behind a broken umbrella, and two men dance in the background.
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...
An image of a warrior with sword and bow and arrows in the foreground, looking back at human/demon forms dancing in the background. Minamoto no Tametomo was, like Oniwaka/Benkei (7), an extremely violent youth. By the time he was fifteen he is...
An image of a warrior with sword and bow and arrows in the foreground, looking back at human/demon forms dancing in the background. Minamoto no Tametomo was, like Oniwaka/Benkei (7), an extremely violent youth. By the time he was fifteen he is...
men (male humans); armor (protective wear); curtains; elderly
An image of an old man, bare-chested, with a knife in his hand, throwing a cup (which shatters) against a pillar. Yoshitoshi's Warriors Trembling with Courage is the transitional series from the clamor of Yoshitoshi's early prints-with their...
An image of monsters coming out of a basket, threatening an old man. An old man and an old woman were neighbors. Every evening the old man fed a sparrow that visited him. When he returned home one day he was disturbed not to see the sparrow and...
