Shirai Gonpachi

Date

1860

Description

Creator of the image: Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Date of the image creation: 1860
Medium of the image: Woodcut, ink on paper
Person depicted: Shirai Gonpachi

One of the last masters of the Japanese traditional ukiyo-e woodblock print-making technique, Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861) remains an influential artist. This image of his depicts the actor Ichikawa Ichizo as Shirai Gonpachi, from the series ‘Mirrors for Collage Pictures in the Modern Style (Imayô oshi-e kagami)’. It was published by Fujiokaya Keijirô (Shôrindô).

Shirai (or Hirai) Gonpachi was born in Inshu (Tottori prefecture). Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford (1837-1916) records the following:

‘Now it happened that one day a dog belonging to [Shirai] fought with another dog belonging to a fellow-clansman, and the two masters, being both passionate youths, disputing as to whose dog had had the best of the fight, quarrelled and came to blows, and Gonpachi slew his adversary; and in consequence of this he was obliged to flee from his country, and make his escape to Edo.’ This begins a life of moral decline.

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