Artist: Utagawa Toyokuni I 歌川豊國 (1769–1825) Subject: A daimyo's travelling retinue (daimyō gyōretsu), retainers carrying lacquered luggage chests past a temple gate under cherry blossom Format: Ōban tate-e — approx. 24*36 cm Technique: Woodblock print (nishiki-e), ink and colour on paper Date: early 19th century Signature: 豊國画 (Toyokuni ga), with artist's seal ________________________________________________________ CONDITION Fair colours and impression; the paper has some minor soiling and minor wear along the margins. The paper is firm and subtle. Good condition overall for a print in this age (+200 years old)! Please check the images! ________________________________________________________ ABOUT THE PRINT Under the Sankin-Kōtai system, feudal lords were required to travel periodically between their home domains and Edo with a full retinue of retainers, a practice that turned the roads of Japan into a regular procession of daimyo households and became one of the most recognisable sights of the period. Ukiyo-e artists returned to this subject often, showing not the lord himself but the visual spectacle of his attendants — swordsmen, luggage bearers, and lacquered travelling chests bearing the house's crest — moving past a recognisable landmark, here a temple gate framed by blossoming cherry trees. Toyokuni I, the leading actor-print designer of his generation, brings the same sharply individualised faces he used for kabuki portraits to this genre scene of retainers on the march.