This page attempts to catalog all known prints in Yoshitoshi‘s series ‘Yoshitoshi ryakuga (芳年 略画 – Sketches by Yoshitoshi)’.
The series dates from toward the end of Yoshitoshi’s career, when he was about 43 years old. It thus dates from only a few years before his well-known masterpieces such as his great series “One Hundred Aspects of the Moon” (1885-1892), and “New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts” (often called simply “Thirty-Six Ghosts”) (1889-1892).
For the subjects of this series, Yoshitoshi drew on Japanese folklore, history, and the Kabuki theatre; most were then presented in a comic style, often with an amusing twist, in the lightly ironic style known as mitate.
The prints were issued in pairs, two on each ōban sheet; they are listed below in their pairs, as published (i.e. 1 and 2 were paired on a single sheet, as were 3 and 4, etc.)
The series was popular, and several re-issues are known, although no detail has yet been worked out as to which was the earliest. One difference that can be pointed out is that the series title, printed in a cartouche on the top print of each pair, is missing in some impressions.
Technical details
- Dates: 1882 (10.5) (Unchecked)
- Size: vertical chūban
- Signed: Unread, various
- Seals: Unread, various
- Publisher: Funazu (Unchecked)
- Block carvers: Unread
Previous cataloguings
Listed in Keyes’ thesis: One of the first attempts to enumerate this series was in Keyes’ thesis: The only known attempts to enumerate this series was in Keyes’ thesis:
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 #446 (pg. 448); he listed 40 prints in the series. The next listing was in:
Eric van den Ing, Robert Schaap, "Beauty and Violence: Japanese Prints by Yoshitoshi 1839-1892", Havilland, Eindhoven, 1992
where it appears as series #42 (pg. 127).
Keyes listed 40 prints in this series. We use the Keyes numbers to order the prints below; the prints in the series do not appear to have any numbers on them.
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, please let us know.
