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The warrior Saitō Toshimoto Nyūdō Ryūhon fighting an enemy underwater
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Description
Here Kuniyoshi depicts an underwater fight between the warrior Saitō Toshimitsu and a giant Chinese opponent. The location of the scene at the bottom of a moat is indicated by the detail of the two fish on the left – a device that Kuniyoshi used in several compositions. The text explains that the fight took place in the distant land of ‘Orangai’, a veiled reference to the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s attempted invasion of Korea in 1592.
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Details
- Series
- Tales of Heroes of the Chronicles of the Great Peace
- Associated place
- Date
- 1847 - 1850
- Artist/maker
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Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797 - 1861) (designer)Ryūkatei Tanekazu (1804 - 1858) (author)
- Associated people
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Yamamotoya Heikichi (active early 19th century - 1886) (publisher)Saitō Toshimitsu nyūdō Ryūhon (c. 1566 - 1625) (subject)Murata Heiemon (active 1843 - 1853) (censor)Mera Ta’ichirō (active c. 1848 - 1853) (censor)
- Material and technique
- woodblock print, with bokashi (tonal gradation)
- Dimensions
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mount 55.4 x 40.3 cm (height x width)
sheet 36.1 x 25 cm (height x width)
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- No. of items
- 1
- Credit line
- Presented by George Grigs, Miss Elizabeth Grigs, and Miss Susan Messer, in memory of Derick Grigs, 1971.
- Accession no.
- EA1971.55
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Further reading
Impey, Oliver, and Mitsuko Watanabe, Kuniyoshi's Heroes of China and Japan: A Selection of Warriors from Two Series of Prints and a Painting by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798 - 1861), the Suikoden of 1827 and the Taiheki of 1848-9 (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2003), no. 20 on p. 12, illus. p. 32 pl. 20
Location
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- currently in research collection
Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.
Publications online
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Kuniyoshi’s Heroes of China and Japan
Saitō Toshimune, ?-1625, (here Saitō Toshimoto Nyūdō Ryūhon) was a son of Saitō Toshizō as was a brother of the well-known Kasugano Tsubone (1579 – 1643) who became the powerful leader of the ladies’ court. Toshimune was originally a subject of Akechi Mitsuhide and later became a vassal of the Katō Kiyomasa with whom he took part in the Korean Invasions, and of Tokugawa Hidetada (1579-1632) after Kiyomasa’s death. At a certain battle in Korea, one of the enemies was a huge man, ‘more than two metres tall’ with a ‘tiger-like beard’ whom nobody except Toshimume, also known as a strongman, dared to fight. Wrestling with each other, they fell into deep water. Eventually, Toshimume appeared victoriously on the surface of the water with the head of his enemy, earning high praise from Kiyomasa.
In this print, ‘Toshimoto’ is on top of his enemy fighting the Chinese hero underwater.
© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum