YOSHITOSHI. 100 Ansichten des Mondes. Authentischer japanischer Holzschnitt. Ukiyo-e - Japan - Meiji Periode (1868-1912)

TSUKIOKA YOSHITOSHI (1839–1892)
Titel: Dawn Moon of the Shinto Rites — 神事残月- The Sannō Festival float

Series: Tsuki Hyakushi (月百姿) — One Hundred Aspects of the Moon; Stevenson no. 33
Date: Meiji 19 (1886) — red date cartouche 御届明治十九年六月五日 printed in the left margin
Publisher: Akiyama Buemon (秋山武右衛門)
Format: Ōban tate-e — approx. 36 × 24.5 cm
Technique: Woodblock print (mokuhanga), polychrome (nishiki-e)
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Condition

Striking impression, and the colour retains its full intensity — the great red brocade of the float, the crimson wig, and the deep festival blue of the sky all unfaded. Woodgrain is visible in the sky at the top of the sheet, indicating an early impression. Overall excellent. The sheet carries an album backing.
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The Scene — Dawn Over the Festival

This is one of the most purely joyful designs in the Tsuki Hyakushi — a series better known for ghosts, warriors, and melancholy poets. Yoshitoshi places us at street level in old Edo, looking up at a towering float of the Sannō Matsuri, one of the city's three great festivals, held in June to coincide with the full moon. Atop the float, a figure in opulent robes and a streaming red wig raises a gohei — the Shinto wand of folded paper strips — high against the morning sky, where the moon lingers, pale and spent, after the night's celebrations: the "dawn moon" of the title.
The signature itself carries a note of nostalgia: Yoshitoshi signs kyū Sannō Matsuri — "the old Sannō Festival" — recording the great Edo procession as it was remembered from before the Meiji transformation of the city. At lower right, a rooster perches on a ceremonial drum: an ancient Chinese emblem of good government, in which the petition drum falls so silent under a just ruler that chickens roost on it. It is a small, learned grace note typical of Yoshitoshi — a wish for peace tucked into a picture of celebration.
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The Series — Yoshitoshi's Late Masterpiece

Tsuki Hyakushi (One Hundred Aspects of the Moon), published by Akiyama Buemon between 1885 and 1892, is universally regarded as the crowning achievement of Yoshitoshi's career and one of the last great monuments of the ukiyo-e tradition. Across one hundred designs drawn from history, legend, literature, and — as here — the living festival culture of Edo, the moon serves as the unifying thread. This sheet, published in June 1886 during the strong early run of the series, preserves the full publication block in the margin: the red date cartouche and the Akiyama Buemon address.

Yoshitoshi trained under Utagawa Kuniyoshi and is widely regarded as the last great master of ukiyo-e. Impressions of this design are held by the Library of Congress, the National Museum of Asian Art (Smithsonian), the Art Gallery of New South Wales, and other major collections.