Stories of Wise Women and Faithful Wives

Part III

	Title: Tokiwa Gozen (常盤御前) Description: Tokiwa Gozen fleeing with her children through the snow Robinson: S20.23
	Another state of the above design with a single kimono color
	This is another edition of the same design. It is a less labor-intensive printing, which almost invariably means a later edition. The delicate shading of color in the sky has been replaced by a solid grey. The shading is called bokashi and was achieved by hand-applying a gradation of ink to the wooden printing block rather than inking the block uniformly. This hand-application had to be repeated for each sheet of paper that was printed.
	This print is similar to the preceding, but lacks the Toshidama seal under Kuniyoshi’s signature. It was probably printed after 1844.  In 1844, Kunisada, a competitor of Kuniyoshi, proclaimed himself the head of the Utagawa school, and adopted the name Toyokuni, which was the name of the previous leader of the school. Kuniyoshi responded by severing his relationship with the school and stopped using the Toshidama seal, which was the schoolʼs heraldic device.
	Title: Tomoe (巴女) Description: Tomoe Gozen seated on a padded mat supervising her young son Asahina Saburô at fencing practice Robinson: S20.24
	Another state of the above design with blue replacing green
	Another state without any ground color
	Yet another state
	Title: Tora Gozen (寅御前) Description: Tora Gozen in a wind, her hat blowing away; after the affair of the Soga brothers, she became a nun Robinson: S20.25
	Another state without any purple
	Title: Uneme (采女) Description: Uneme standing in court robes holding a fan with three nested ceremonial sake cups and a ceremonial sake pourer Robinson: S20.26
	Another state with green clouds in the text cartouche
	Title: Yamabuki Gozen (山吹御前) Description: Yamabuki Gozen seated on several shields by a log fire mending the coat of her husband Yoshinaka Robinson: S20.27
	Title: The Wife of Kajiwara Genda Kagesue (Kajiwara Genta Kagesue tsuma, 梶原源太景季妻) Description: The wife of Kajiwara Genda Kagesue with a small girl attendant carrying a branch of cherry blossoms Robinson: S20.28
	This is another edition of the same design. The above print is a more labor-intensive printing, which almost invariably means an earlier edition. In this print, the woodblocks for green ink (grass) and brown ink (both kimono) were omitted, as was the pattern in the red portion of the little girl’s kimono. This pattern consists of light and dark shades of red, which required applying red ink with two different woodblocks. The dark red probably represents two superimposed layers of ink while the light red is only a single layer.
	Another state with green clouds in the title cartouche
	Title: The Wife of Kusunoki Tei-i Masashige (Kusunoki Tei-i Masashige tsuma, 楠廷尉正成妻) Description: The wife of Kusunoki Tei-i Masashige restraining her young son Masatsura from performing seppuku after his father’s death Robinson: S20.29 NOTE: The term “hara-kiri”, although more common in English than “seppuku”, is considered in Japan to be a vulgar and disrespectful description of an honorable action.
	Another state of the above design with orange and blue clouds in the text cartouche
	Another state with only a single band of clouds in the text cartouche
	Probably a shita-e (preparatory drawing) for the above print
	Title: The Wife of Izumi no Saburô Tadahira (和泉三郎忠衡が妻) Description: Fujinoe, the wife of Izumi no Saburô Tadahira, standing holding a naginata (pole arm) while an attendant maid pours out hot drinks Robinson: S20.30
	This is another edition of the same design. The above print with a blue top border and pigment in the steam emanating from the hot drinks is the more labor-intensive printing, which almost invariably means an earlier edition. The gradual shading of ink is called bokashi. Bokashi was achieved by hand-applying a gradation of ink to the wooden printing block rather than inking the block uniformly. This hand-application had to be repeated for each sheet of paper that was printed.
	Title: The Daughter of Dainagon Yukinari (Dainagon Yukinari musume, 大納言行成女) Description: The daughter of Dainagon Yukinari painted a butterfly so lifelike that her cat grabbed it Robinson: S20.31 Text: She became Ienaga’s wife and always liked to draw. One day, she took a brush to her heart’s content and painted a butterfly on a flower. Her daughter, Nefurisame, went crazy to catch the butterfly and tore the paper, 家永の妻となり常に画く事を好みて　ある時心まゝに筆をとり花に蝶をゑがき給ひ　心のつかれにつら／＼ねふり給ふに　膝の元に常にかひおかれし猫俄に狂ひ出て蝶をとらんとつひに紙をやぶりぬ　息女ねふりさめ) NOTE: Kuniyoshi loved cats and included them in many of his prints. It is said that they had the run of his studio.
	Another state of the above design with a single band of clouds in the text cartouche
	Another state with a green kimono

“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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