act. ca. 1868-1892
Taiso Yoshitoshi Memorial Portrait
(Taiso Yoshitoshi zo)
signed Toshikage kinsha, with artist's seal Toshikage, with carver's seal Enkatsu kinto (Noguchi Enkatsu), and publisher's elephant-shaped seal Tokyo, Akiyama Buemon with date Meiji nijugonen rokugatsu (Meiji 25 [1892], June)
oban tate-e 13 7/8 by 9 1/2 in., 35.3 by 24.1 cm
The publisher Akiyama Buemon advertised the availability of this memorial portrait of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) in the newspaper Yomiuri Shinbun on June 22, 1892, only thirteen days after his death on June 9th.
The poem reads:
yo o tsumete
terimasarishi wa
natsu no tsuki
Holding the night at bay,
having outshone all the rest,
is the summer moon.
signed Kokai in Yoshitoshi with artist's seal Yoshitoshi
(Translation by Lawrence Marceau from Newland 2011)
Toshikage was one of Yoshitoshi's first pupils, known to have been studying with him as early as 1864 and living with him by 1866. He was among the group of artists with Yoshitoshi on the day he witnessed the carnage at Battle of Ueno in 1868.
References:
Keyes, Courage and Silence, 1983, pp. 535, 548
Segi, Yoshitoshi the Splendid Decadent, 1985, pp.152-155
van den Ing & Schaap, Beauty and Violence, 1992, p. 8, no. 1
Stevenson, Yoshitoshi's 100 Aspects of the Moon, 2001, p. 10
Newland & Uhlenbeck, Yoshitoshi: Masterpieces from the Ed Fries Collection, 2011, p. 39, no. 17 (and poem)
Tokyo Metropolitan Library, accession no. 4722-103
price: Sold