YOSHITOSHI • Μια Συλλογή Επιθυμιών • Θέλω μια τζούρα • Ιαπωνική ξυλογραφία Ουίκιο-ε - Ιαπωνία - Meiji period (1868-1912)

Artist: Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (月岡芳年, 1839–1892) — signed Ōju Taiso Yoshitoshi (応需大蘇芳年)
Ippuku Nomitai (いつふくのみたい) — "I Want a Smoke"

Series: Mitate Tai Zukushi (見立多以尽) — Representations of Desires / A Collection of Desires
Technique: Woodblock print (nishiki-e)
Date: Meiji 11, 1st month (January 1878)
Edition: First edition (see note below)
Publisher: Inoue Shigehei (井上茂兵衛, also read Inoue Mohei)
Format: Ōban tate-e, approx. 36 × 24 cm (14½ × 9¾ in.)
Signature: Ōju Taiso Yoshitoshi (応需大蘇芳年) with red artist's seal Yoshitoshi
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1. Impression and Colors

A strong, fresh impression with crisp black keyblock lines and precise registration. The colours are rich and well balanced — the deep red kanoko robe, the green and purple bedding, the warm tones of the pillow, and the luminous green-and-cream bokashi ground. Fine work is well preserved throughout, including the sujibori hairline carving of the coiffure and the three-colour bokashi title cartouche.

2. Paper & Condition

Original Meiji-era impression on washi, in good condition overall. There is a minor scuff to the lower margin and some light surface rubbing to the paper at the top, with some light, natural toning consistent with the age of the print. The paper got a bit softer after removing the backing. Please study all photographs closely for a full sense of the paper — toning, margins, and the reverse. Please check the images!
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3. I Want a Smoke — The Morning Pipe

A young woman reclines against a round pillow in the soft light of morning, propped languidly on one elbow with a long-stemmed kiseru pipe held loosely in her hand. Her robe has slipped open at the shoulder, her gaze is heavy-lidded and unhurried, and her whole posture speaks of the drowsy ease of someone newly woken and in no haste to rise. The title gives her first thought of the day: ippuku nomitai, "I want a smoke" — that first restorative pull on the pipe. It is among the most intimate and frankly sensual images in the series, a study of private, unguarded languor.

The composition is built on the long red stem of the kiseru cutting diagonally across the lower sheet and the rich fall of bedding around her. She wears a deep red kanoko (tie-dye) robe over green and purple under-layers, the striped bedding and round pillow heaped about her, all set against a green-and-cream bokashi ground; a spray of chrysanthemums stands in the alcove behind. As in every sheet of the series, the title turns on the word tai ("I want to…"), and the long accompanying text by Takabatake Ransen — evoking the dawn, the lovers' morning parting (kinuginu), and the "herb of longing" (sōshigusa, an old poetic name for tobacco) — plays against the image with the wit and double meaning that run through the series.

This is a first-edition impression, identifiable by two diagnostic features. First, the title cartouche is printed in the three-colour scheme — red, cream, and green with smooth bokashi grading — that distinguishes the first issue from the later edition, in which the cartouches were printed in flat grey. Second, the round publication seal carries the date fully written out, (Meiji 11, 1st month, 1878); in the later edition the numerals were removed from this seal, leaving only the empty framework.
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4. Mitate Tai Zukushi — Yoshitoshi's Wry Portraits of Desire

The Mitate Tai Zukushi (Representations of Desires, also translated A Collection of Desires) is a set of some twenty bijin-ga published in remarkably rapid succession over barely two months in 1877–78 by Inoue Shigehei. Each sheet shows an unnamed woman in a domestic moment whose pose and surroundings illustrate a particular wish — from "I want to go to sleep" and "I want another drink" to "I want to go abroad." Every title hinges on a play with the word tai, and the accompanying texts — by the popular writer Takabatake Ransen, who signs the present sheet wryly as Ransen Sanshi, "inscribed in his cups" — add a layer of humour and innuendo when read against the image.

The series is best understood as an important precursor to Yoshitoshi's celebrated late bijin masterwork, Fūzoku Sanjūnisō (Thirty-Two Aspects of Customs and Manners, 1888), which it anticipates by a full decade. The intimate half-length framing, the close attention to a woman's passing mood, and the wit of the conceit are all already present here, in the middle of the artist's career, before the great supernatural and historical series for which he is best known.