Ukiyo-e Prints

浮世絵版画

TSUKIOKA YOSHITOSHI

月岡芳年

1839-1892

RAINY DAY TANUKIS

Series Title:

Tōkyō kaika kyoga meisho

東京開化狂画名所

"Comic Pictures of Famous Places

in the Early Days of Tokyo"

Subject:

Medicine Peddlers Startled by Gigantic

Testes of Tanuki at Hiroo Plain in Azabu
(Azabu Hiroo no hara Senkintanō)

麻布広尾原 千金丹

Date: 1881

Meiji 14

明治14

Publisher: Tsunashima Kamekichi

綱島亀吉

The publisher's seal was located along

the lower left side of the print,

but that area has been trimmed off.

Size: 6 7/8" x 8 1/2"

Signed:

Yoshitoshi giga

       芳年戯画戯画

There are other copies of this print in the

Philadelphia Museum of Art,

the Edo Tokyo Museum,

the Adachi Museum of Art

and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

SOLD!

This print was published as the bottom half of a sheet.

The top image showed a comic tengu scene.

The full sheet can be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

*****

Those fine people at the University of Vienna have written:

"Tanuki fight with their testicles (kintama) against the modernization of the Meiji period. The inscribed text reads:

"Asabu Hiroo-no-hara: Senkintan are afraid of large testicles 千金 丹 大 き ん 玉 に お ど ろ く."

Senkintan were around 1880 fashionable medicines or traveling pharmacists from Shikoku.

The western umbrellas with the inscription "Senkintan" were their trademarks.

The image joke is based on a play on words by (Sen) kintan and kintama ("gold balls" = testicles).

The scene takes place in Hiroo-no-hara in the area of ​​today's Shibuya, i.e. on the edge of the big city."

We are offering another tanuki print.

The one shown above is by Yoshiiku. 

Click on the image above to go to that page.