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Nozarashi Gosuke, from the series Men of Ready Money with True Labels Attached, Kuniyoshi Fashion (Kuniyoshi moyô shôfuda tsuketari genkin otoko)


「国芳もやう正札附現金男 野晒悟助」
Utagawa Kuniyoshi (Japanese, 1797–1861)
Publisher: Ibaya Kyûbei (Japanese)
Japanese
Edo period
about 1845 (Kôka 2)

Medium/Technique Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper
Dimensions Vertical ôban; 36 x 24.6 cm (14 3/16 x 9 11/16 in.)
Credit Line William Sturgis Bigelow Collection
Accession Number11.28900
NOT ON VIEW
ClassificationsPrints
Nozarashi Gosuke is a fictional character who first appeared in a novel published in 1809, Honchō suibodai zenden (literally The Altar of Drunkenness in Japan, with wordplay on the Japanese title of the translated Water Margin), written by Santō Kyōden (1761–1816) and illustrated by Utagawa Toyokuni (1769–1825), the teacher of both Kuniyoshi and Kunisada. In the story, Gosuke is a disciple of the great Zen master Ikkyū Sōjun (1394–1481), but he only spends half of each month serving in the temple. The other half of the month he roams as an unruly otokodate, or street knight, a term for a fashionable, streetwise young man who uses his martial arts skills to fight oppression. The character was so appealing that he appeared in a number of kabuki plays as well, but Kuniyoshi presents him here as a “real,” historical personage, one of a set of ten. Ikkyū was known for carrying a skull on a stick to remind those around him of the evanescence of human life, and Gosuke echoes this teaching by wearing a black kimono with a pattern of skulls. Upon close inspection, the skulls are revealed to be made up of clusters of cats and kittens, an inside joke by cat-loving Kuniyoshi. Skulls also appear on the purple priest’s cape that Gosuke wears draped over the black kimono, but these skulls are made of lotus leaves. Finally, a worn wooden clog dangles from the hilt of Gosuke’s sword, with strands of grass threaded through the skull-like holes for the thongs, so that it parodies Ikkyū’s skull on a stick.

(Sarah E. Thompson, from MFA Publications, Kuniyoshi X Kunisada (2017), pp. 226-7.)

Catalogue Raisonné MFA, Kuniyoshi X Kunisada (2017), #10; MFA, Kuniyoshi & Kunisada (2016), #7; Iwakiri 2011, #62; Schaap, Heroes and Ghosts (1998), #58; Robinson, Kuniyoshi: The Warrior-Prints (1982), list #S40.4
DescriptionMFA impressions: 11.26092, 11.28900
Signed Ichiyûsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Marks Censor's seal: Hama
No blockcutter's mark
改印:浜
彫師:なし
InscriptionsPoem by Ryûkatei Tanekazu (1807-58): Adashino no/ someiro medatsu/ Date yukata/ tsumakuru juzu ya/ tsuyu no shiratama

「仇し野の 染色めたつ 伊達ゆかた つまくる数珠や 露のしら玉 柳下亭種員」

What striking colors--/ a graveyard theme dyed into/ a flashy garment--/ are those prayer beads wrapped around/ or pale white droplets of dew? (SET trans.)
ProvenanceBy 1911, purchased by William Sturgis Bigelow (b. 1850 - d. 1926), Boston [see note 1]; 1911, gift of Bigelow to the MFA. (Accession Date: August 3, 1911)

NOTES:
[1] Much of Bigelow's collection of Asian art was formed during his residence in Japan between 1882 and 1889, although he also made acquisitions in Europe and the United States. Bigelow deposited many of these objects at the MFA in 1890 before donating them to the Museum's collection at later dates.