Illustrated Examples of Mad Sketches

(Kyôgwa e-tehon)

Publisher: Daikoku-ya Kinnosuke

1859

This series is actually political satire with hidden rebuses and visual metaphors. It is listed as number 222 in Kuniyoshi by Basil William Robinson (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1961). The prints in this series are each about 14 by 10 inches (36 by 25 centimeters), a size known as ôban.

	Number: 1 Description: A half-naked man is bitten in the finger by a snapping turtle; two men are running away in hot haste in front of a Buddhist statue of Jizô; four men playing ken; beside a giant rat that is suppressing a weasel with a square object, a half-naked man is standing with an opened fan; a man with a furious face is pointing with his finger onto another man eating mochi (rice cakes); and a fisherman is entwined and captured by a giant octopus. Date: 5^th month of 1859
	Another state of the above design
	Number: 2 Description: The persecutors are hanging on a rope from a running horse from which a man is falling down; man with a shouldered gun, running away from a boar, one man who is tossed by the fangs and another man who is carrying an opened umbrella and clinging to the boar; man who is caught by a woman at the scruff of his neck; fleeing man who is caught by a kappa at his loincloth; and man carrying the palanquin at the front wants to pick up a wallet. Thereby the palanquin is bending side wards and the guest is falling out. Date: 5^th month of 1859
	I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this alternate state.
	I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this alternate state with a green ground.

“Robinson” refers to listing in Kuniyoshi by Basil William Robinson, 1961, Victoria and Albert Museum, London

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