** One of the sought-after designs of the series – a cinematic composition. Gekkō's Gishi series is increasingly sought after as collectors have come to appreciate his position between ukiyo-e and the modern print; designs from the series are held in institutional collections including the British Museum. ** Artist: Ogata Gekkō 尾形月耕 (1859–1920) Series: Gishi shijūshichi zu 義士四十七圖 (Pictures of the Forty-seven Loyal Retainers) Title: Kurahashi Densuke Munefusa 倉橋傳助宗房 Format: Ōban tate-e, approx. 36 × 24 cm Technique: Woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and colour on paper Date: Meiji period, 1896–1902 (to be confirmed from the margin colophon) Publisher: Matsuki Heikichi 松木平吉 (margin colophon) Signature: 月耕 (Gekkō), with the artist's seal ________________________________________________________ CONDITION Very good colors and strong impression. The paper has minor Soiling/toning and an album backing. Please check the images! ------------------------------------------------------- About the print It is the night of the fourteenth day of the twelfth month, Genroku 15 — the raid on Kira's mansion. Gekkō places us directly behind Kurahashi Densuke, crouched low in the black raid uniform of the forty-seven, fire-hood and helmet secured, drawn sword held flat and ready. We see him as a comrade would: from behind, over the shoulder, sharing his line of sight. And what he watches — what we watch with him — is combat unfolding at a distance, two figures locked in a spear-and-sword duel, rendered not in full colour but in pale, watered tints inside a glowing circle of apricot light that opens in the grey darkness like a lantern's halo. This is where Gekkō departs completely from the conventions of the warrior print. A Kuniyoshi or a Kunichika would have thrown the fight at us — full-sized, saturated, filling the sheet. Gekkō instead gives us a single figure, monumental and still, and pushes the violence back into atmosphere. The effect is genuinely cinematic: a shallow depth of field, a foreground in sharp focus, a background dissolving into light and mist. The composition understands something the older musha-e tradition rarely admitted — that the tensest moment of a battle is not the blow, but the instant of waiting before it.