Modern Select Dolls, Part II

Title: Selected Modern Life-sized Dolls (Tôsei mitate ningyô no uchi, 當盛見立人形の内), The Upstairs Parlor of a Brothel (Nikai zashiki no zu, 二かい座敷の図) Date: 2^nd month of 1856 Description: A brothel scene Publisher: Honmo (本茂)
Another state of the above design
I am grateful to Lucienne Parkan for this image of a state without any purple.
I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this state of the above design with a multicolor title cartouche.
Title: Fashionable Living Dolls (Fûryû iki ningyô, 風流生人形) Date: 2^nd month of 1856 Description: Minamoto no Tametomo seated on a rock drinking sake (centre) as two demons (right) attempt to bend his giant bow, and two attendants (left) watch in amazement Publisher: Yamaguchi-ya Tôbei Image courtesy of Louise Ariëns Kappers and C.P.J. van der Peet Japanese Woodblock Prints
I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this preliminary sketch for the preceding print.
Title: Fashionable Living Dolls (Fûryû iki ningyô, 風流生人形) Description: Brothel scene with a courtesan having her hair done and another with a pipe and a seated man with pox on his face Publisher: Yamaguchi-ya Tôbei NOTE: The figure with exposed breasts in front of a mirror is Mayuzumi, a Yoshiwara courtesan who gave aid during a recent earthquake. The hanging scroll shows phallic-shaped mushrooms.
Title: Fashionable Living Dolls (Fûryû ningyô, 風流人形) Description: Brothel scene with a courtesan having her hair done and another with a pipe and a seated man with pox on his face Date: 2^nd month of 1856 Publisher: Daikoku-ya Kinnosuke NOTE: The individual sheets comprising this triptych are each about 10 by 7 inches (25 by 18 centimeters), a size known as chûban.
Title: Modern Select Dolls (Tosei mitate ningyô no uchi, 當盛見立人形之内), Inside Picture of the Temporary Rental Rooms (Karizashiki oku no zu, かりざしき奥の図) Description: Brothel scene with a courtesan having her hair done and another with a pipe and a seated man with pox on his face Date: 3^rd month of 1856 Publisher: Honmo (本茂) NOTE: Karizashiki (借座敷 in kanji) means rented or borrowed tatami room. It refers to the Yoshiwara brothels that were temporarily relocated after the earthquake and fire of 1855. I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this image and information.
Title: Figures of the Loyal Retainers (Gishi ningyô, 義士人形) Description: Fight between the rônin and Morono’s retainers with a half-dressed woman on the ground Date: 2^nd month of 1856 Publisher: Ebi-ya Rinnosuke
Title: Figures of the Loyal Retainers (Gishi ningyô, 義士人形) Description: The rônin attacking Kobayashi Heihachiro in Morono’s palace Date: 2^nd month of 1856 Publisher: Ebi-ya Rinnosuke
Title: Figures of the Night Attack of the Loyal Retainers (義士人形夜討之図) Description: Left sheet: Yoshida Sadaemon Kanesada (吉田定右衛門兼貞) and Ôboshi Rikiya Yoshikane (大星力弥良兼) Center sheet: Ôtaka Gengo Tadao (大高玄吾忠雄) Right sheet: Oribe Yahei Kanamaru (織部矢兵衛金丸) and Hara Gôemon Mototoki (原郷右衛門元辰) Date: 3^rd month of 1856 Publisher: Ebi-ya Rinnosuke
Title: Picture of the Chûshingura Night Attack (Chushingura youchi zu, 忠臣蔵夜討図) Description: The night attack of the 47 Ronin Date: 3^rd month of 1856 Publisher: Yamaguchi-ya Tôbei
Another state of the above design with the subtitle Elegant Living Dolls (Fûryû iki-ningyô, 風流生人形) added to the right sheet on the snow-covered roof. I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this image.
Title: Pictures of Fashionable Dolls (Fûryû ningyô no zu, 風流人形之圖) Description: Two women fleeing the forty-seven Rônin’s attack on Moranao’s palace Date: 3^rd month of 1856 Publisher: Mikawa-ya Rihei
Title: Dolls Viewed as Gods, Confucians, and Buddhists (Ningyo mitate shin ju butsu, 人形見立 神儒佛) Description: The Buddhist saint Hinzuru (right) dances with the Shinto deity Uzume, whilst Confucius and Mencius play go in the background, waited on by attendants Date: 3^rd month of 1856 Publisher: Daikoku-ya Kinjirô I am grateful to Hehe Galerie for this image.
Another state of the above design
Title: Lifelike Fashionable Dolls (Fûryû ningyô no uchi, 風流人形之内) Subtitle: Watonai, O-tsuji, and Hotato (和藤内, お津ぢ, 坊太郎) Description: The child Hotoro (left) sits with an opened scroll before him, watching his nurse O-tsuji (right) perform penitence under a waterfall Inset: The pirate Watonai restraining a tiger Date: 3^rd month of 1856 Publisher: Jôshû-ya Juzô
Title: Modern Series of Dolls (Tôse ningyô zukushi, 當世人形づくし) Description: The pirate Watonai facing a tiger, while the monk Nichiren kneels in prayer as the executioner’s sword shatters (日蓮上人龍口御難) Date: 3^rd month of 1856 Publisher: Fujioka-ya Keijirô
Title: Lifelike Fashionable Dolls (Fûryû ningyô no uchi, 風流人形之内) Description: The child Hotoro and his nurse O-tsuji (left) and the execution of the monk Nichiren (right) Date: 3^rd month of 1856 Publisher: Kazusa-ya Iwazô I am grateful to Hehe Galerie for this image.
Title: Lifelike Fashionable Dolls (Fûryû ningyô no uchi, 風流人形之内) Subtitle: Description: Date: 4^th month of 1856 Publisher: Jôshû-ya Juzô I am grateful to Lucienne Parkan for this image.
Title: Picture of Dolls (Ningyô no zu, 人形之図) Description: A scene from a kabuki play about Iwafuji and Ohatsu Date: 2^nd month of 1856 Publisher: Mikawa-ya Tetsugorô
Title: Picture of Fashionable Living Dolls (Furyu ningyo no zu, 風流人形之図） Description: A scene from a kabuki play about Iwafuji and Ohatsu Date: 2^nd month of 1856 Publisher: Yamaguchi-ya Tôbei NOTE: This triptych is similar to the preceding triptych, but has a different title and publisher.
Title: Selected Modern Life-sized Dolls (Tôsei mitate ningyô no uchi, 當盛見立人形の内), Kagamiyama (かがみ山) Description: A scene from a kabuki play about Iwafuji and Ohatsu Date: Publisher: Honmo (本茂) NOTE: “Kagamiyama” is a shortened form of the title of the kabuki play Kagamiyama Kokyô no Nishikie. I am grateful to Robert Pryor for this image.
I am grateful to Robert pryor for this preliminary sketch.
Title: Fashionable Living Dolls (Fûryû iki ningyô, 風流生人形) Description: The strong woman Kaneko Kugutsune (also called O Kane or Omi no O Kane) stopping a runaway horse Date: c. 1856 Publisher: NOTE: This is a hanshita-e (final drawing for a print) that was never published.
Title: Fashionable Living Dolls (Fûryû iki ningyô, 風流生人形) Description: Ôban triptych of scenes of lifelike dolls Date: 2^nd month of 1856 Publisher: Ômi-ya Kyûjirô
	Description: The sennin Kikujidô (菊慈童, Ch’u-tsu-tung in Chinese), who is also known as the Chrysanthemum Boy, as an androgynous youth in Chinese clothes seated among chrysanthemums Publisher: Kaga-ya Kichiemon Date: c. 1836 Robinson: S1d.4 NOTE: This ningyô was not part of the exhibition at Kannon Temple in Asakusa, but was displayed at an earlier chrysanthemum exhibition.
This 1856 triptych by Kuniyoshi’s student Yoshiiku shows nine scenes of lifelike dolls.
Program (banzuke, 番付) for the exhibition by Kuniyoshi’s student Yoshitsuya titled “Life-sized Dolls on Display at Asakusa in the New Year” (来ル正月二日ヨリ浅草奥山ニて興行) Date: 11^th month of 1857 Publisher: Mori-ya Jihei I am grateful to Paul Steier for this image.
A 19^th century iki-ningyô similar to those seen by Kuniyoshi (left), and a contemporary one titled is Tôrei (Winter Loveliness) created by the master doll maker, Hirata Gôyô, in 1958 (right).

“Robinson” refers to listing in Kuniyoshi: The Warrior-Prints by Basil William Robinson (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1982) and its privately published supplement.

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