Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety of Our Country

(Honchô nijûshi-kô)

Publisher: Mura-Tetsu

1842-1843

The book entitled ‘The Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety’ was written by the Guo Jujing during the Yuan Dynasty.  It recounts the self-sacrificing behavior of twenty-four Chinese children who improved their parents’ lives or peacefully honored their deceased parents.  This series of prints portrays a more warlike lot of children from Japanese history and legend–several free their parents from captivity or avenge their parents’ deaths.  The prints in this series are each about 10 by 7 inches (25 by 18 centimeters), a size known as chûban.

 

Scene: Anju-hime carrying two buckets on a pole over her shoulder accompanied by her brother, Tsushiô Maru who is carrying a rake and a basket of reeds

Robinson: S23.1

 

Scene: Chiyonô-hime in a wind holding a torch and a dirk about to rescue her father from imprisonment after the rebellion of Aidzu no Tarô Nobuchika against Yoritomo

Robinson: S23.2

 

Scene: Chûjô-hime walking by a lotus pond on a windy day

Robinson: S23.3

 

Scene: The young Soga brothers practice swordsmanship on a heap of snow in order to avenge their father

Robinson: S23.4

 

Scene: Hino Kumawaka Maru training to avenge his father by swinging across a stream on a bamboo

Robinson: S23.5

 

Scene: The dutiful girl of Hitotsuya saved from the hag of the lonely house by an apparition of the goddess Kannon

Robinson: S23.6

 

Scene: Hitsu-no-Saishô Haruhira recognizes his Father who was forced to act as a lighthouse with a candle on his head

Robinson: S23.7

 

Scene: Homma Gennai-hyôye Suketada writing his farewell poem on a torii at Shitennôji with his own blood after the death of his father Sukesada

Robinson: S23.8

 

Image courtesy of John Rose and Auction Ukiyo-e Ltd.

  

 

Scene: Ima-jo a poor girl of Take-no-uchi village in province of Yamato catching a carp to feed her parents

Robinson: S23.9

 

Scene: Kamada Matahachi of Matsuzaka fighting off wolves with a huge iron bar in the Ashigara Mountains of Idzu

Robinson: S23.10

 

Scene: Keyamura Rokusuke spending seven days under the Hikosan Gongen Waterfall

Robinson: S23.11

 

Scene: Takenori Kinsuke seated with his bow behind him and the hat of a palace guard before him

Robinson: S23.12

 

Scene: Kôju Maru seated grasping a dirk and about to perform seppuku with travelers on a mountain behind him

Robinson: S23.13

 

NOTE: The term ‘hara-kiri’, although more common in English than ‘seppuku’, is considered in Japan to be a vulgar and disrespectful description of an honorable action.

 

Scene: Komatsu Sammi Shigemori-kyô in as a youth

Robinson: S23.14

 

Scene: Kusunoki Masatsura in court robes over armor beside an armillary sphere on a starry night

Robinson: S23.15

 

Scene: Karumo, the dutiful girl of Matsuyama, looking in astonishment in a mirror on the floor in which she mistakes her own reflection for that of her dead mother

Robinson: S23.16

 

Scene: The dutiful youth from Mino Province carrying wood to warm his aged father

Robinson: S23.17

 

Scene: The dutiful girl Nobu with her sickle on the ground carrying a basket of rushes for her aged mother

Robinson: S23.18

 

Scene: Yoshioka Ichimisai’s daughter Sono dressed as a nun and carrying a shakuhachi (traditional Japanese bamboo flute) with three puppies at her feet

Robinson: S23.19

 

Scene: Suketoki from Yamato visiting with his dead parents who returned to him in the form of butterflies

Robinson: S23.20

 

Scene: The poetess, Suô no Naishi, walking on a windy night

Robinson: S23.21

 

Scene: Teruta-hime carrying a water bucket through the snow

Robinson: S23.22

 

Another state of the above print

 

Scene: Uneme of Atsuta exorcising a monstrous serpent from a lake

Robinson: S23.23

 

Scene: The dutiful youth Yoji leading his monkey

Robinson: S23.24

 

Scene: Yuya holding a poem-card by a blossoming cherry tree

Robinson: S23.25

  

Image courtesy of John Rose and Auction Ukiyo-e Ltd

 

Scene: Zennojô of Shinano with two demons and one of the judges of hell seeing a vision in a large mirror

Robinson: S23.26

‘Robinson’ refers to listing in Kuniyoshi: The Warrior-Prints by Basil William Robinson (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 1982) and its privately published supplement.

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