• Kakegawa (掛川): Fukuoka Mitsugi (福岡貢) from the series <i>Fifty-three Pairings for the Tōkaidō Road</i> (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui</i> - 東海道五十三対)
Kakegawa (掛川): Fukuoka Mitsugi (福岡貢) from the series <i>Fifty-three Pairings for the Tōkaidō Road</i> (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui</i> - 東海道五十三対)
Kakegawa (掛川): Fukuoka Mitsugi (福岡貢) from the series <i>Fifty-three Pairings for the Tōkaidō Road</i> (<i>Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui</i> - 東海道五十三対)

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 01/01/1797 – 04/14/1861)

Kakegawa (掛川): Fukuoka Mitsugi (福岡貢) from the series Fifty-three Pairings for the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui - 東海道五十三対)

Print


ca 1845 – 1846
9.125 in x 14.25 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Artist's seal: kiri
Publisher: Ibaya Senzaburō
(Marks 127 - seal 21-095)
Carver: Horikō Takejirō (彫工竹次郎)
Censor's seal: Mura
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
British Museum
Waseda University
Museum für angewandte Kunst, Vienna
National Diet Library
Walters Museum of Art
Muzeum Sztuki i Techniki Japońskiej Manggha, Krakow
Van Gogh Museum
Google maps - The Marriage Rocks at the Futamiokitama Shrine
Royal Museums of Art and History, Belgium (via Cultural Japan)
Museum of Oriental Art, Venice (via Ritsumeikan University)
Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen (Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde, Leiden) via Ritsumeikan University
Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts
The National Gallery in Prague
Harn Museum of Art This print in the Lyon Collection appears to be from the first edition as indicated in the description of the fan cartouche at the top left. It starts out dark at the top, faded to white in the middle and back again to the darker shades at the bottom.

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The inscription as found at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston: "此駅に下逆(しもさか)の鍛冶あり 昔福岡宗吉といふ名匠(めいかぢ)帝の勅使を受け 大井川の水に和し 剣一口(ひとふり)打得たり 帝御幸あって 業を試ん と新刃を水にひたして急流の上より藁一筋を流さしめ 其藁此剣の影を流れず 却て水上へ逆上るゆへ 帝感じ給ひ名を下逆と勅号す 其後青江某の家に伝 青江下逆と呼ぶ 此刀一度粉失し 福岡貢 種々辛苦して勢州二見浦にて手がかりを得て 竟(つひ)に刀を手に入れ主家を興す 忠臣稀なり この因によつてこれを図す"

The translation (as per Tōkaidō Texts and Tales... on page 94):

"The blacksmith Shimosaka is to be found at this station. Long ago, famed blacksmith Fukuoka Sōkichi received a visit from an imperial envoy, and he finished a sword by quenching it in the water of the Ōi River. Then the emperor paid him a visit, whereupon the blacksmith performed this same act by immersing a new sword in its waters. The blacksmith let a single straw float down from the swift currents upstream, but this straw did not flow along the lines of the sword. Rather, it went back upstream. The emperor was quite moved, and proclaimed the sword's name Shimosaka (Upstreamer). Afterward the sword was preserved in the Aoe family called the Aoe Shimosaka. At one point the sword became lost. Fukuoka Mitsugi underwent various hardships in search of the sword, and eventually obtained a clue to its whereabouts at Futami Bay in Ise Province. He managed to retrieve the sword, and thereby restored the fortune of his master's household. Such a loyal subject is rare. For this reason I have shown the story here."

The commentary from the same source reads: "The print actually depicts a scene from the kabuki play A Song of Ise: Love and a Dull Blade (Ise ondo koi no netaba). Not a Kakegawa but around 80 miles (ca. 130 km) away at Futami Bay, indicated by the famous Wedded Rocks in the background, Mitsugi inspects the second half of a letter that he managed to obtain, which proves that treason was committed to overthrow the Awa daimyo."

Some of the background story behind this character:

In 1796 in the town of Furuichi near the Ise Shrine a drunken doctor went on a murderous rampage in the local Aburaya brothel. Before it was over a number of people lay dead or wounded including the maid Oman. Two days later the doctor committed suicide at the home of his uncle who was a low-ranking priest at the shrine.

This series of events and others like it had been fuel for the creative talents of 18th century authors. Within ten days the first performances of a play based on this incident was being performed in a town nearby. Its success spurred Chikamatsu Tokuzō (近松徳三 or ちかまつ.とくぞう:1751-1810) and two of his assistants to create their own version which debuted in Kyōto just two and a half months later. Supposedly written in only three days this qualifies it as an "overnight pickle play" or ichiyazuke kyogen (一夜漬狂言 or いちやづけ.きょうげん).

Like other murderous plays this one was often performed during the summer "...when the bloodcurdling doings on stage might provide audiences some 'chilling' relief in sultry weather."

Okon's lover is the sensitive Mitsugi, but when he takes possession of a bloodthirsty sword his whole personality changes. Okon is the heroine, but her role is somewhat secondary. Although Mitsugi leaves a stage littered with the dead and dying he is never blamed. The sword is. After several more dramatic scenes three figures 'pose triumphantly' at the end including Mitsugi and Okon. While this leaves the audience thinking this might be a happy ending it is nevertheless slightly ambiguous - "...Okon's fate remains vague."

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The lower part of this print illustrates a famous scene from a kabuki play, possibly Ise Ondo Koi no Netaba. Kabuki21 gives a summary of this play:

"The plot concerns a valuable sword made by the smith Shimosaka and possessed by a bloodthirsty spirit. The daimyō of Awa had in his service a samurai to whom he entrusted the precious Shimosaka sword. This sword caused the death of the samurai and also that of his son, who inherited the trust. The son left an only child, a little boy, whose mother was already dead. The boy's aunt, terrified of the evil sword, disposed of the weapon secretly and fled from Awa with her little nephew under an assumed name in the Ise district. The boy, Fukuoka Mitsugi (who is the hero of the play), was adopted by a priest of the Grand Shrines and grew up in the service of the Shrines, but he never forgot that his first allegiance was to the daimyō of Awa and more especially to the daimyō's Chief Counsellor, who had been his father's immediate superior. Meanwhile, the daimyō of Awa died and was succeeded by a child. This boy's uncle, Kajikawa Daigaku, plotted to usurp the power, but was thwarted in his plans by the loyalty of the Chief Counsellor. Daigaku therefore determined to discredit him and one of the several plots he devised concerned the Shimosaka sword. Word came to the Chief Counsellor that this sword, his lord's heirloom, was for sale in the town of Furuichi in Ise. He therefore sent his son, Imada Manjirō, to buy it and bring it back to Awa. Manjirō was a charming youth of weak character. He bought the sword, but then fell victim to the attractions of Okishi, a courtesan of Furuichi. Instead of returning home he remained with his love and to pay his debts was forced to pawn the Shimosaka sword, although retaining the certificate which proved its authenticity. The spies of the wicked Daigaku were watching Manjirō. The chief of these, a samurai named Tokushima Iwaji, plotted to secure both the sword and the certificate so that Manjirō would be unable to fulfil [sic] his mission and his father would be disgraced through him. Iwaji succeeded by a trick in stealing the certificate from Manjirō, but could not lay his hands on the sword because both the pawnbroker and the weapon had disappeared. At this point Fukuoka Mitsugi enters the story. As has been said, he was by birth the retainer of the Chief Counsellor of Awa. He learned of Manjirō's predicament and received permission from his present master, who was a friend of Manjirō's father, to go to the youth's assistance. Mitsugi decided that the first thing was to get Manjirō out of harm's way; then he could hunt for the sword and the certificate."

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There are nine prints from this series, Fifty-three Pairings for the Tōkaidō Road (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui - 東海道五十三対), in the Lyon Collection. See also #s 382, 815, 816, 819, 861, 951, 1095 and 1269.

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Illustrated:

1) in color in Kunisada's Tōkaidō: Riddles in Japanese Woodblock Prints by Andreas Marks, Hotei Publishing, 2013, page 104, #T78-27.

2) four times in color in Tōkaidō Texts and Tales: Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui by Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, and Kunisada, edited by Andreas Marks, University Press of Florida, 2015, on pages 95 and 173.

3) in color in an online publication, 'Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui – Uma Série Japonesa na Coleção do Museu Calouste Gulbenkian' by Beatriz Quintais Dantas, her master's thesis, Anexo 49, p. 23, April, 2021. The author used the same as the example in the British Museum. Also shown in a small color reproduction of the copy that is in the Gulbenkian Collection at #27.

4) in black and white in the Catalogue of the Van Gogh Museum's Collection of Japanese Prints by Charlotte van Rappard-Boon, Willem van Gulik and Keiko van Bremen-Ito, 1991, p. 286, #417.

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The Lyon Collection has another print featuring Fukuoka Mitsugi (#362). In that case he is outside a brothel/teahouse where Aburaya Okon works.

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The original Tōkaidō was established by the Kamakura bakufu (1192-1333) to run from Kamakura to the imperial capital of Kyoto.

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The Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui: A collaborative work

Andreas Marks wrote in 'When two Utagawa masters get together. The artistic relationship between Hiroshige and Kunisada' in Andon 84, November 2008, pp. 37 and 39:

"The artistic relationship between Hiroshige and Kunisada entered a new period in 1845, when both artists were commissioned to contribute to the series Fifty-Three Pairs of the Tōkaidō (Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui). The Fifty-Three Pairs of the Tōkaidō is an example of a series where a number of artists were commissioned to contribute complete and individual designs under a specific theme. A few years before, the Kisokaidō series by Hiroshige and Eisen had been published with the same concept. This concept became quite common in the second half of the 1840s until the early 1850s, and sometimes the artists were supported by their disciples who drew inset cartouches.

The main contributor to the Fifty-three Pairs of the Tōkaidō was actually Kuniyoshi with 30 designs, followed by Hiroshige (21 designs), and Kunisada (eight designs)." This series of 59 ōban falls in a period when designers, actors, writers, and publishers had been imprisoned or expelled from Edo in the aftermath of the so-called Tenpō reforms (Tenpō no kaikaku). Only the joint effort of six different publishers made this series possible."

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About the fan cartouches found at the top of each print in this series

Laura W. Allen wrote about these fan-shaped cartouches on page 9 in 'An Artistic Collaboration: Traveling the Tōkaidō with Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, and Kunisada' in Tōkaidō Texts and Tales: Tōkaidō gojūsan tsui by Kuniyoshi, Hiroshige, and Kunisada: "At the outset someone decided that the publishers would promote their individual brands through the use of different-shaped cartouches... at the top of hte prints in the set: a bean shape (mame) for Ibaya Senzaburō (active 1810s to 1860s), a fan shape (ōgi) for Ibaya Kyūbei (active ca. 1804 to 1850s), two overlapped snowflake roundels (yukiwa) for Kojimaya Jūbei (active 1790s to 1860s), two overlapped round fans (uchiwa for Enshūya Matabei (active 1760s to early 1880s), a stylized shrimp (ebi for Ebiya Rinnosuke (active 1830s to 1890s), and a square (kaku for Iseya Ichiemon (active 1820s to 1860s). The six men were all former members of the fan makers' guild, and they worked in close proximity to each other, sharing or independently operating shops within the same Edo neighborhood, Nihonbashi Horiechō, all within the blocks designated as Itchōme and Nichōme. It was only the dissolution of the guild system during the Tenpō reforms that allowed other craftsmen, such as these former fan makers, to begin publishing single-sheet prints. The Tenpō reforms thus stimulated not only artistic change - in the development of new themes - but also social mobility, as the fan makers came to occupy new terrain with the publishing industry."
Ibaya Senzaburō (伊場屋仙三郎) (publisher)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)