This page attempts to catalog all known prints in Yoshitoshi‘s series ‘Kōkoku nijūshikō ( 皇國 二十四 功 – Twenty-four Accomplishments in Imperial Japan)’. (The title is now usually written with the simplified character 国.) It consists of images of various people (mostly samurai, with some others) who played notable roles in Japanese history.
It dates from towards the end of Yoshitoshi’s career, when he was about forty-two. It thus dates from slightly before 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).
The texts on the prints are by Ryūtei Tanehiko II; it is not clear whether Tanehiko wrote text to go with Yoshitoshi’s illustrations, or if Yoshitoshi produced images to go with Tanehiko’s text. The early group (see below) are signed ‘Tentendojin’; the later group are signed ‘Ryūtei Tanehiko’ or ‘Ryūtei Tanehiko ki’ (柳亭 種彦 記 – ‘Written by Ryūtei Tanehiko’). His words are poetic and allusive, and underscore the mood of Yoshitoshi’s image.
Technical details
- Dates: 1881 (5) – 1887 (9)
- Size: Ōban
- Signed: Taiso Yoshitoshi hitsu (first edition); Yoshitoshi (second edition)
- Seals: Taiso (first edition); Yoshitoshi (second edition)
- Publishers: Tsuda Genshichi (first edition); Matsuki Heikichi (second edition)
Publishing commenced in 1881, and the first 16 prints were produced by the end of that year; a long hiatus then ensued, and the remaining 8 were only finally published 6 years later, in 1887. The reason for the delay is not known. When publication resumed, and the entire group was published as a set, some of the prints in the first group were re-issued with different colors .
The series was very popular while Yoshitoshi was alive, and it went through numerous printings. Several different states may be seen of these early printings (all with a red title cartouche); in some (perhaps the earliest, since it was the most work to produce) the text panel has several inclined bokashi stripes across it; in others (perhaps later), a simple band of bokashi at the top and bottom; and in others, no decoration at all.
The entire set was posthumously re-published between 1893 and 1895 by Matsuki Heikichi; paler colours were used, and some block changes were made. The easiest tell-tale for the second publishing is that the title cartouche is no longer red, but grey. The most significant change in most of the prints in that edition was the alteration of the signature: in all of them, the entire signature cartouche was removed, and replaced with a facsimile of the signature Yoshitoshi used toward the end of his life, along with a seal from that period.
Previous cataloguings
It is listed 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 #438; he listed the 24 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 #41 (pp. 126-127).
We use the Keyes/B+V numbers to order the prints below.
If you have either i) information about any errors on the page, ii) better images than the ones below, please let us know.
