Waterfall-striped Materials in Answer to Earnest Prayer

(Daigwan jôju ari-ga-taki-jima)

Publisher: Iba-ya Sensaburô

c. 1845

This series consists of ten half-length portraits of beautiful women (bijin) wearing striped kimono. Each print has a poem and an inset picture of a waterfall. This series is listed as number 111 in Kuniyoshi by Basil William Robinson (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1961). The prints in this series are each about 14 by 10 inches (36 by 25 centimeters), a size known as ôban.

	Beauty: A woman holding a ring of ground cherries (hozuki) in her left hand and a fan in her right Inset: Endô Moritô doing penance under the Nachi Waterfall after having killed his beloved Schaap: 7.1
	Beauty: A female court attendant making oshi-e (raised patchwork) next to a hibachi Inset: Tamaehime trying to free the captured god of rain in order to end a drought Schaap: 7.2
	Beauty: A pensive girl leaning on an armrest contemplating a tied scroll Inset: Sugawara Michizane (845-903), who had been banished to Dazaifu on false accusations, making his daily ascent of Mount Tempai with his favorite plum tree, which miraculously followed him into exile, in the background Schaap: 7.3
	Beauty: A woman drying her back with a towel under a loosely draped gauze kimono with a rack of dried gourd strips above her head Inset: Taira Kiyomori ( 1118-1181) in a thunderstorm in front of the Nunobiki Waterfall Schaap: 7.4
	This is another state of the above print with different colors.
	Beauty: A woman passing through a bamboo noren (shop curtain) thus creating an image that mirrors that of the waterfall in the inset Inset: Hatsuhana praying under the waterfall at Hakone for the recovery of her crippled husband Iinuma Katsugorô Schaap: 7.5
	Beauty: Kikujidô, having just washed her hair, is holding a box of chrysanthemum-shaped mochi (rice cakes). The chrysanthemum is also seen on her kimono. Inset: Kikujidô, ‘the sprite of chrysanthemum’ Schaap: 7.6
	Beauty: A praying woman holding an umbrella under her right arm Inset: Hakoomaru, the younger of the Soga brothers, at Hakone Schaap: 7.7
	Beauty: A woman washing herself while sitting with her left hand in a tub of water Inset: Kyoyû seeking absolution in the Ei River Schaap: 7.8
	Beauty: A woman holding a water-spraying toy in her left hand, restraining a child on her lap who reaches for it. Her obi is decorated with dragons Inset: Matsunage Taisen with the famous sword Kizui, an heirloom of Yukimura Schaap: 7.9
	Beauty: A woman with outstretched hands grasping a koto covered with a piece of cloth Inset: Kintarô wrestling with a giant carp Schaap: 7.10
	This is a final drawing (hanshita-e) for the above print
	This is a key block print for the same design. It is an impression pulled from the first woodblock made by a carver from the artist’s original drawing. The artist would write instructions for each color on a separate key block print, and the woodblock for each color was cut using one of these as a guide. Registration marks (kento) are characteristically found on Japanese key block prints, although not seen on this example. Kento are cut in each woodblock, so that the paper can be properly aligned on each woodblock during printing. In addition to being a guide for carving the color woodblocks, the key block was also used to apply black ink (usually) in the printing process.

‘Schaap’ refers to listing in ‘Heroes and Ghosts: Japanese Prints by Kuniyoshi’ by Robert Schaap (Hotei Publishing, Leiden, 1998).

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