Kuniyoshi (1797–1861) – Yamabuki Gozen, from the Devoted Consort of Kiso Yoshinaka - Japan - Edo Period (1600-1868)

Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳), 1797–1861
Title: 山吹御前 Yamabuki Gozen — a consort of the warrior Kiso (Minamoto no) Yoshinaka

Series: Kenjo reppu den (賢女烈婦傳), Biographies of Wise Women and Virtuous Wives
Technique: Nishiki-e, woodblock print in colours on paper
Date: c. 1841–1842 (Tenpō 12–13)
Publisher: Ibaya Senzaburō (Ibasen)
Format: Ōban tate-e, approx. [37 × 25 cm]
Signature: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga (一勇斎国芳画)
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Impression & Colours: Excellent. The impression is strong and sharp throughout, with crisp keyblock lines and fine detail preserved. The colors are well saturated.

Paper: Very good. The paper is firm, intact with a couple of minor repairs.
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The Scene — A Warrior's Lady at Her Needle

Kuniyoshi shows Yamabuki Gozen caught in a quiet, intimate act: she kneels at her needlework, a threaded needle raised in her outstretched hand and the thread drawn up to her lips to bite it through, her lacquer sewing-box open on the cloth before her. It is a portrait not of battle but of devotion — the lady mending and preparing the gear of her warrior husband, whose red-laced armour rests at the right with a wisp of smoke curling above it.

The detail a collector will love is the wordplay woven into her robe. Yamabuki is the kerria rose, the bright yellow flower of late spring — and Kuniyoshi scatters golden yamabuki blossoms across her indigo kimono, a silent visual pun on her very name. Around them runs a sumptuous play of pattern: tortoiseshell hexagons (kikkō) filled with florets, a sky-blue sash of clouds, and coral grounds — the textile virtuosity for which Kuniyoshi and his school were famous.

The biographical cartouche above tells her story in miniature, naming Kiso Yoshinaka, the warrior-woman Tomoe, and Yoshinaka's son Shimizu no Kanja Yoshitaka — the world of the Genpei War to which this gentle scene quietly belongs.
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Yamabuki Gozen — Devotion Beside Valour

Yamabuki Gozen was a consort of Kiso (Minamoto no) Yoshinaka (1154–1184), the brilliant and ill-fated general of the Genpei War who swept the Taira from the capital before being destroyed by his own kinsman Yoritomo. Yoshinaka is forever linked with two women: the celebrated warrior Tomoe Gozen, who rode at his side in armour, and Yamabuki — remembered instead for her devotion, and said in the old accounts to have remained behind, ill, when Yoshinaka rode to his last campaign.

It is precisely that contrast that makes her a fitting subject for this series. Where Tomoe embodies martial courage, Yamabuki embodies steadfast loyalty — and Kuniyoshi gives her the timeless, telling gesture of a wife at her sewing, tending the very armour in which her lord will ride away.
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The Series — A Gallery of Exemplary Women

Kenjo reppu-den ("Lives of Wise and Heroic Women") is one of Kuniyoshi's most appealing figure series, a gallery of celebrated women from history and legend — empresses and poets, loyal wives and warrior heroines — each shown half- or full-length with a biographical text-panel recounting her story. Among her companions in the set are Tomoe Gozen, the poet Izumi Shikibu, the tragic Kesa Gozen, and Tokiwa Gozen.

Published in the early 1840s by Ibaya Sensaburō, the series belongs to the years just after the Tenpō Reforms, when virtuous and improving subjects such as these found official favour — and it let Kuniyoshi pour his gifts into the costume, character and storytelling he loved. This design is held in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with the series also represented in the British Museum and the Rijksmuseum.