File:Minamoto no Yorimitsu-ko no yakata ni tsuchigumo yokai o nasu zu 源頼光公館土蜘作妖怪圖 (The Earth Spider Conjures up Demons at the Mansion of Minamoto no Raiko) (BM 2008,3037.20906).jpg

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Summary

Minamoto no Yorimitsu-ko no yakata ni tsuchigumo yokai o nasu zu 源頼光公館土蜘作妖怪圖 (The Earth Spider Conjures up Demons at the Mansion of Minamoto no Raiko)   (Wikidata search (Cirrus search) Wikidata query (SPARQL)  Create new Wikidata item based on this file)
Artist
Print artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳)
Title
Minamoto no Yorimitsu-ko no yakata ni tsuchigumo yokai o nasu zu 源頼光公館土蜘作妖怪圖 (The Earth Spider Conjures up Demons at the Mansion of Minamoto no Raiko)
Description
English: Woodblock triptych print, oban tate-e. The Earth Spider (right) conjures up demons at the mansion of Minamoto no Raiko (Minamoto no Yorimitsu) (right), who lies sick in bed. Two of his bodyguards, Watanabe no Tsuna and Sakata no Kintoki, play go (centre), while Urabe no Suetake (right) and Usui no Tadamitsu (left) look towards the procession of spirits in the background.
Date circa 1843
date QS:P571,+1843-00-00T00:00:00Z/9,P1480,Q5727902
Medium paper
Dimensions Height: 35.20 centimetres (c) Height: 35.70 centimetres (l) Height: 35.50 centimetres (r) Width: 25.70 centimetres (c) Width: 25.90 centimetres (l) Width: 25.80 centimetres (r)
institution QS:P195,Q6373
Current location
Asia
Accession number
2008,3037.20906
Notes This could be described as one of the earliest political cartoons in Japan. Ostensibly it shows the fevered dreams – a battle between two opposing demon armies – of the warrior hero Minamoto no Yorimitsu (Raiko-, d. 1021) who is on his sickbed guarded by his loyal retainers, the so-called ‘Four Heavenly Kings’ (Shitenno-). The nightmare is conjured up by the evil Earth Spider, the Tsuchigumo, who is shown as an apparition behind Yorimitsu, top right. In practice, the image was widely read by the Edo populace in 1843 as the artist Kuniyoshi’s satirical response to the hated Tenpo- reforms that were being imposed by the shogunate in 1841–3. By this reading, each of the demons was interpreted as representing some group in society that was suffering under the reforms, which were aimed at restricting various luxury items, social customs, performing arts and religious practices. The sick Yorimitsu was therefore seen to represent the ineffectual shogun of the day Tokugawa Ieyoshi (r. 1837–53) and the Four Heavenly Kings, his ministers who were spearheading the reforms. It has long been known from contemporary records that the publisher Ibaya took fright at the runaway success of the image and, fearing punishment by the authorities, voluntarily recalled stocks of the prints and destroyed the printing blocks in the eighth month, 1843. Kuniyoshi scholar Iwakiri Yuriko has recently argued, however, that the print was actually designed at the end of 1842 for issue at the New Year, 1843. For a while in 1842, although designs were being heavily censored under the reforms, finished prints were not being published with a printed censorship mark on them; also, 1843 was a rabbit year, which explains the small model rabbit seen in front of Yorimitsu in Kuniyoshi’s design. Even though the first ‘authorized’ edition was voluntarily removed from sale, several pirated editions and versions in other formats by other artists seem to have circulated widely. This is one of the more carefully executed pirate editions, printed from recut blocks, and missing Kuniyoshi’s signature and the publisher’s mark on the centre and right sheets. A smaller format, ‘underground’ shunga version was also made of the subject (Clark et al 2013, cat. 75). [TC]
Source/Photographer https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_2008-3037-20906
Permission
(Reusing this file)		 © The Trustees of the British Museum, released as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

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Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current17:57, 7 May 2023Thumbnail for version as of 17:57, 7 May 20231,542 × 728 (320 KB)Artem.GCropped 4 % horizontally, 11 % vertically using CropTool with lossless mode.
14:01, 5 May 2020Thumbnail for version as of 14:01, 5 May 20201,600 × 815 (327 KB)CopyfraudBritish Museum public domain uploads (Copyfraud/BM) Utagawa Kuniyoshi 1843 #2042
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