This page attempts to catalog all known prints in Yoshitoshi‘s series ‘Yoshitoshi musha burui (芳年 武者 旡類 – Yoshitoshi’s Courageous Warriors)’; the title is often translated as ‘Yoshitoshi’s Warriors Trembling with Courage’.
The series dates from the end of Yoshitoshi’s career, when he was about forty-four. It thus dates from very shortly 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).
Technical details
- Dates: 1883 (12) – 1886 (10)
- Size: ōban
- Signed: Taiso Yoshitoshi ga
- Seals: Unread
- Publisher: Kobayshi Tetsujirō
- Block carvers: Horikō Muneoka, Wada, unidentified
There are at least 3 editions of the first printing of this series. The first is usually (as with all things with Japanese woodblock prints, there are always exception to every rule) denoted by two small square red seals in the left-hand margin, and the title cartouche has several inclined bokashi stripes across it (which makes sense for the earliest, since it was the most work to produce). Very late editions are said to lack not only these, but the black line around the image.
It was also re-published by Tsunajima Kamekichi in 1886; although a later printing, copies from this run are usually quite well printed. Instances from this printing may be distinguished by the use of a plain grey field in the title cartouche.
Previous cataloguings
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 #460; he listed all 33 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 #44 (pp. 128-130).
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, or iii) missing information about individual prints (e.g. publisher, exact date), please let us know.
