Ukiyo-e Prints

浮世絵版画

*NOTE: On May 9, 2004 I corrected the year in which Toyokuni III died on all of the appropriate pages in this web site. I had based my previous dating on that found in Laurance P. Roberts' A Dictionary of Japanese Artists: Paintings, Sculpture, Ceramics, Prints, Lacquer, published by Weatherhill, 1976, p. 96. However, Sebastian Izzard gives a date of January 12, 1865 in Kunisada's World, published by Japan Society, Inc., 1993, p. 37. Until someone proves otherwise I am accepting Izzard's dating as the more accurate one.

KUNISADA'S OEUVRE

Kunisada was far and away the most prolific Japanese artist of the 19th century or for that matter any other century. Roger Keyes addressed this fact when discussing Osaka prints.

"The only regional prints to seriously rival those of Edo on their own ground of quality in design, engraving, and printing, were those produced in Osaka. But in a century of the study and collecting of Japanese prints, those of the Osaka school have been virtually ignored. There are several reasons for this neglect: the first being their scarcity. Between the 1790s and the late 1800s some two hundred Osaka artists produced between ten and fifteen thousand single-sheet print designs. This does not seem to argue rarity, but in the mid-nineteenth Edo three popular artists, Kunisada, Kuniyoshi, and Hiroshige each designed well over ten thousand single-sheet prints, and Kunisada , was active for sixty years, may have designed over twice this number, not to mention book illustrations." (1)

Sebastian Izzard iterated what Keyes had said. "Kunisada's vast output - he is thought to have designed over 20,000 different prints - has made serious study of his work difficult." (2)

1. World of Osaka Prints, by Roger S. Keyes and Keiko Mizushima, Philadelphi Museum of Art, 1973, p. 16.

2. Kunisada's World, by Sebastian Izzard, Japan Society, Inc., 1993, p. 40.

KUNISADA

国貞

(1786-1865)

$375.00

KUNISADA

国貞

(1786-1865)

KUNISADA

国貞

(1786-1865)

KUNISADA

国貞

(1786-1865)

Onoe Eizaburō

Iwai Hanshirō as an onnagata

Ichikawa Fuzō V

1838

1819

 1814

14 5/8" x 9 1/2"

15 1/4" x 10 3/8"

13 3/4" x 9 1/2"

$240.00

$420.00

$320.00

KUNISADA

国貞

(1786-1865)

KUNISADA

国貞

(1786-1865)

Matsumoto Kôshirô V

as Tohachi Go-mon

Ichikawa Omezô I

as Sakata (no) Kintoki

1825

Ca. 1820s

14" x 9 3/8"

14 1/2" x 10"

$240.00

ORIGINALLY $300.00

NOW $190.00

KUNISADA

国貞

(1786-1865)

KUNISADA

国貞

(1786-1865)

Bijin from the series "Seven Contemporary Beauties"

Standing Bijin

Ca. 1825-30

Ca. 1829

15 3/16" x  10 1/4"

15 3/16" x  10 3/8"

$1,400.00

ORIGINALLY

$1,320.00

NOW

$790.00