Imayō Mitate Hori Suri Ryōkō no Zu [A Modern-day Adaptation Picturing Carving and Printing]

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Imayō Mitate Hori Suri Ryōkō no Zu ["A Modern-day Adaptation Picturing Carving and Printing"]

Utagawa, Kunisada [Toyokuni III] [illustrated by]. 

[Japan: publisher unidentified, ca. Taishō period (1910-20s)?].

A simplified Taishō-era (?) reproduction of the triptych Imayō Mitate Shi-Nō-Kō-Shō: Shokunin ("A Modern-day Adaptation of the Four Classes: Artisans") by Utagawa Kunisada originally published in Ansei 4 (1857). In his Imayō Mitate Shi-Nō-Kō-Shō series, Kunisada depicts women in typically male professions. This triptych, based on the "artisan" profession, shows women in the roles related to the production of woodblock prints. One horishi in the upper right is cutting the initial finer lines of a hanshita illustration into a block, while a helper sharpens one of her knives in the foreground. The horishi with a black outer garment is hard at work cutting out the less intricate parts of a block with a chisel and hammer, as are two helpers hanging up and taking down some papers that have been prepared and a woman preparing paper with nikawa for printing in front of her (dōsa). The printer sits watching, smoking her pipe - she has plenty of paper ready and pigment has already been applied to the printing block, so it seems she is taking a break; her hair is noticeably the most bedraggled, suggesting she has the most physically taxing task. 

Another popular English translation of the title is "A Fanciful Transformation of the Four Social Classes in Japan"; the four classes Kunisada featured in the series were warriors (samurai), farmers, artisans, and merchants. The original publisher, Uoei Eikichi, was also the publisher of Hiroshige's Meisho Edo Hyakkei series. Only a few triptychs designed in the Edo period depicted the process of woodblock printing, and Kunisada's illustration was certainly inspired by Utamaro's earlier Edo Meibutsu Nishiki-e Kōsaku: Eshi, Hangishi, Dōsa-biki (ca. 1803) triptych on the same theme. This Taishō era reproduction may have been produced for the Tokyo-based Ukiyo-e magazine. Woodblock-printed reproductions of this triptych are surprisingly difficult to find. 

One leaf, woodblock-printed on one side, complete. Some light stains, mainly to margins. Mounted at head on thin card. Light creases. Minor chips to extremities. 24.3 x 35.9 cm. 

Imayō Mitate Hori Suri Ryōkō no Zu [A Modern-day Adaptation Picturing Carving and Printing]
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