Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915) (小林清親) is, in my humble opinion, the most artistic interesting of the artists who depicted the Sino-Japanese war (1894-1895) and the Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905.
He produced more then 70 triptychs and multitude of single sheets designs, during the brief ten months of the Sino-Japanese War.
He produced more then 70 triptychs and multitude of single sheets designs, during the brief ten months of the Sino-Japanese War.
The above print is from the rare series “Mirror of Army and Navy Heroes”. This set paid tribute to individual heroes, who preformed their duties well in battle.
We have a good selection of Sino and Russo-Japanese war triptychs, however the single sheets tend to be much more rare then the triptychs with the exception of the single sheet series "One Hundred Laughs", these humours war propaganda prints are still not to difficult to find. However some of the triptychs by Kiyochika are exceedingly difficult to find.
A "Photo-journalist". Naval officers standing in the background.
Date: 1895 (Meiji 28), March.
Size: Oban tate-e
Signed: Kiyochika, sealed Kiyochika
Publisher: Inoue Yoshijiro.
Impression: A very fine impression. An atmospheric printing with superbly and thinly printed bokkashi in the background as well as on the deckboards in the foreground.
Condition: Fine
Colour: Fine.
Some of the other prints from this set which are available:
- "Sailor Tanaka Ichitaro" - The blinded sailor.
- "Lieutenant Manu Ganjiro of the Ninth Torpedo" - The "One man torpedo".
- About twenty more designs are available. Please inquire.
The above group of prints comes from a large family collection of ukiyo-e, which we bought last year in Kyoto. The prints were all Meiji period prints and collected between the late 1870s- 1908. They were all kept in the family "kura"(1). All prints from this collection are in fine condition. They have not been touched since 1908, but kept in the same chest in which the original owner placed them. Most of this collection was bought by one institution. However some were not, due to previous duplicate content. Of the remains we are offering prints from the above set for sale to our blogg readers.
Sold
1. Kura is a special built house meant to be fire, earthquake and burglar proof. It was a very expensive structure to build. Very rich families kept their family treasures, gold, money and valuable commercial goods in the kura. If the kura contained commercial goods it was usually divided in to parts, a commercial stock part and a private part, sometimes two separate "kura" were built.
倉"kura" n: warehouse, storehouse, granary. (See the Japanese characters likeness to a house with a very strong wood frame and an entrance bridge leading up to the door. A true pictogram.)
Beneath are two links to a very informative website by Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the above war campaigns and the artists who depicted them:
The above website have been highly controversial. You should read the text by Professor John Dower of the history faculty and Professor Shigeru Miyagawa of linguistics and of foreign languages. Please follow this link to read about the controversy.
Tags: Japanese Photographer, Photo Journalist, Senso-e,
