This page attempts to catalog all known prints in Yoshitoshi‘s series ‘Firemen’s Standards of all Great Districts ( Kaku daiku matoi ) 1876′.
Firemen were well respected in Yoshitoshi’s time, their prestige equal to sumo wrestlers and actors. Fire brigades were well organised in all districts, and were often quite competitive with one another. This is the second series Yoshitoshi produced featuring firemen (see Isami no kotobuki – Keyes #165), and he produced several individual prints as well (see #59 in the Yūbin hōchi shinbun series).
Technical details
- Dates: 10/1876
- Size: Ōban
- Signed: ōju Yoshitoshi hitsu (in kana)
- Seals: Unread
- Publishers: Ōkura Magobei
- Block carvers: Horikō Gin
Previous cataloguings
Roger. S. Keyes, "Courage and Silence: A Study of the Life and Color Woodblock Prints of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 1839-1892", Cinncinnati, 1982
where it appears as series #338.
Eric van den Ing, Robert Schaap, " Beauty and Violence: Japanese Prints by Yoshitoshi 1839-1892 ", Havilland, Eindhoven, 1992 where it appears as series #30, pages 55, 120.
This page (and list) is not necessarily complete; the series is not well documented, and there may be yet other prints which have not yet come to our attention. If you know of any prints from this series which aren’t listed here, or have either i) information about any errors on the page, ii) better images than the ones below, or iii) missing information about individual prints (e.g. publisher, exact date) please let us know.
