Toyohara Kunichika (1835-1900) Newly Woven Brocades: Musashi Beauties; Beauty with a Water Dipper, 1883. Oban.
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A very nice print indeed. Amy Reigle Newland, in Time Past and Time Present, Images of a Forgotten Master, Hotei Publishing, 1999 discusses the series at length. Aside from being an accomplished, indeed the foremost, actor portraitist, Kunichika was a leading illustrator of women, and an innovator in that field. Classical, passive images of women from the eighteenth century had in fact given way to much more positive, urban images of women in real situations. Kunichika expanded on this by showing women in strong historical roles - as in Thirty-six Good and Evil Women from 1876 - and by showing contemporary townswomen in day to day activities, as in this series and others. In this way, Kunichika was hugely influential on Yoshitoshi who followed these groundbreaking prints with his own series such as Thirty-Two Aspects of Customs and Manners in 1888.
In this series, the 'brocades' of the title refers to the richness of the successful multi-coloured printing that the publishers were now able to produce. These deluxe, sophisticated prints were widely known as 'brocade prints' (nishiki-e). The 'Musashi' of the same title, refers to the Musashi Plain that Edo (modern Tokyo) is built upon. 'Musashi' was a term widely used in eighteenth century poetry and became synonymous with the romantic and self-regarding aspects of Edo life.
The series is not fully recorded, this print is not in any major collections, which isn’t to say that it is unknown, but appears not to be recorded. In this print a woman stands in front of a verandah; a water dipper and elaborate glazed pot stand outside. She leans casually on a temple drum. A very lovely print, unbacked; trimmed to the image on the right edge. Some toning to the paper, some light creasing, otherwise colour and impression are fine.
37 x 23 cm.
