Flowers of Daigo, Regent Hideyoshi - Snow, Moon and Flowers - Japanese Woodblock Print - - Toyohara Yoshu Chikanobu (1838-1912) - Japan - Meiji period (1868-1912)

** Another strong sheet from the series, with intricate colour and design — The print features some of the finest pigments/dyes used in the meiji era. **

Artist: Toyohara (Yōshū) Chikanobu (楊洲周延, 1838–1912)
Title: 雪月花 山城 醍醐花 関白秀吉 淀君 (Setsugekka: Yamashiro – Daigo no hana, Kanpaku Hideyoshi, Yodogimi), Yamashiro: Flowers of Daigo, Regent Hideyoshi and Lady Yodogimi

Series: Setsugekka (雪月花, Snow, Moon and Flowers)
Publisher: Kobayashi Tetsujirō (小林鉄次郎)
Date: 1885 (Meiji 18)
Technique: Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and colour on paper
Format: Ōban tate-e, approx. 36 × 24 cm
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Condition: Excellent impression with strong unfaded colour — the deep crimsons and bokashi in the background are fully preserved. Full margins with the complete publication data intact. Minor remnants of backing on the verse. A museum quality impression!
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About the print:

This is the “flower” design for Yamashiro, the province around Kyoto. Its subject is one of the most famous parties in Japanese history: the cherry blossom viewing at Daigo-ji that Toyotomi Hideyoshi gave in the spring of 1598. The cartouche names the two main figures: Hideyoshi, with his title Kanpaku (Regent), and his consort Yodogimi.

Hideyoshi rose from a humble background to become the ruler of a unified Japan. He liked to show his power through lavish events. For the Daigo party he had about 700 cherry trees planted at the temple and the Sanbō-in and its garden built. Around 1,300 guests attended, among them his son Hideyori, his wife and his consorts. It was his last great celebration, since he died later the same year. Daigo-ji still re-enacts the event with a procession every April.

Yodogimi (also Yodo-dono, born Chacha) was a niece of Oda Nobunaga and the mother of Hideyoshi’s heir Hideyori. After Hideyoshi’s death she became one of the most powerful figures in the Toyotomi house. She died with her son when Osaka Castle fell to Tokugawa Ieyasu in 1615. The Daigo party, held only months before Hideyoshi’s death, is therefore often seen as the last bright moment of the Toyotomi clan.
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About the Setsugekka series:

The Setsugekka series, published between 1884 and 1886 by the prestigious publisher Kobayashi Tetsujirō, comprises fifty individual ōban prints. Its title derives from an ancient Chinese poetic motif associating snow, moon and flowers with the seasons, but the true subject of the series is a sweeping panorama of Japanese history, mythology and literature — from court tales and Noh drama to warrior legends and supernatural folklore. The thematic range is extraordinary: across fifty designs, Chikanobu moves from Heian-era romance to Sengoku battlefield drama, from Chinese legend to the ghost stories of Edo, treating each subject with a distinctive compositional approach and mood. In this respect, the Setsugekka stands alongside Yoshitoshi's Tsuki Hyakushi (One Hundred Aspects of the Moon) as one of the great narrative series of the late nineteenth century, and the two are regularly compared by scholars and collectors alike.

What sets the Setsugekka apart visually is the richness and durability of its pigments. Spectroscopic research published in Heritage Science has demonstrated that the dominant red pigment in nishiki-e prints of this precise period (1884–1886) was not aniline dye — as is commonly assumed for Meiji prints — but cochineal carmine, a lake pigment formed from carminic acid precipitated with aluminium salts into an insoluble compound, typically mixed with vermilion (mercuric sulfide), a wholly inorganic mineral pigment. This carmine-vermilion combination produces the deep, saturated crimsons visible in the present print and accounts for their remarkable resistance to fading and water damage — a stark contrast to the fugitive naphthol reds that would appear in cheaper prints only after 1889. Combined with Kobayashi Tetsujirō's premium production standards — thicker pigment applications, high-quality paper, and deluxe printing techniques including fine bokashi and occasional metallic accents — the Setsugekka prints have retained their chromatic intensity with astonishing fidelity over nearly a century and a half.