** Tokiwa Gozen in the snow — the single most reproduced design in the series, and one Vincent van Gogh owned a copy of ** Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳), 1797–1861 — signed Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga (一勇斎国芳画) with red seal Title: 「常盤御前」 Tokiwa Gozen — fleeing through the snow with her three sons Series: Kenjo reppu den (賢女烈婦傳) — "Biographies of Wise Women and Virtuous Wives," red title cartouche upper right Publisher: Ibaya Senzaburō (伊場屋仙三郎), Dansendō — round mark lower left Date: Edo period, ca. 1841–43 (Tenpō 12–14) Technique: Woodblock print (mokuhanga) Format: Ōban tate-e — approx. 36 × 24.5 cm Literature: Robinson, Kuniyoshi: The Warrior-Prints (1982), list S20.23; Schaap, Heroes and Ghosts (1998), no. 31. Impressions in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam — the latter from the Japanese print collection assembled by Vincent and Theo van Gogh. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Paper & condition Offered honestly as a fair-condition example of a much-wanted design. The impression and colours are fairly preserved — the blue of the shibori roundels and the graded blue of the water still read well. The paper has gone somewhat dull and soft, with toning, soiling and surface rubbing, and there are minor repairs. Please examine all photographs closely and judge the sheet for yourself! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ABOUT THE PRINT Kyoto, the winter of 1160. Minamoto no Yoshitomo is dead, the Taira are hunting his household, and Tokiwa Gozen walks out of the capital into the snow with her three small sons — the youngest of them Ushiwakamaru, who will grow up to be Yoshitsune. Kuniyoshi builds the whole design out of one idea: the children are inside the mother. A vast pale robe scattered with blue and grey shibori roundels swings across almost the entire sheet, and under its hem you find them — small hands cupped to mouths, blowing warmth into their fingers, a scarlet under-robe flashing where the fabric parts. Tokiwa herself is barely visible: a white face turned down and away under the brim of a broad travelling hat, one hand lifted to hold it against the wind. Below, three pairs of geta and her own, and the trail of clog prints already filling with snow behind them. The rest is atmosphere. The sky darkens to black at the top in a deep bokashi band; the water at the left is graded blue over snow-laden reeds; three herons break upward across the sheet, one at the right with its wings fully open. Almost no strong colour anywhere — the design runs on white, grey, blue and one red under-robe, which is exactly why it holds. The text cartouche at the upper right recounts her story: the palace attendant who became Yoshitomo's consort, lost him in the Heiji rebellion, fled to the village of Fushimi, and later submitted to Kiyomori to keep her sons alive — the compromise that let the Minamoto line survive and, in the end, destroy the Taira. ---------------------------------------- THE SERIES Kenjo reppu den ran to some three dozen designs for Ibaya Senzaburō in the early 1840s, each portraying a woman from history, legend or the classical repertoire whose fame rested on loyalty, sacrifice or nerve rather than beauty: Tora Gozen, Hangaku, Kaga no Chiyo, the wives of Kusunoki Masashige and Kajiwara Kagesue. Every sheet carries the same red title cartouche and an inset panel of text setting out the woman's virtues. The series arrived just as the Tenpō reforms were closing down actor and courtesan subjects, and moral exemplars of this kind gave publishers a safe and very saleable alternative. Tokiwa in the snow is the design the series is remembered for, and Kuniyoshi returned to the subject repeatedly across his career.