Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments
height 207 mm × width 182 mm
Kitagawa Tsukimaro
A Sumo Wrestler
Japan, Japan, 1819
Provenance
…; purchased from the dealer C.P.J. van der Peet Japanese Prints, Amsterdam, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1993;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1995
Object number: RP-P-1995-296
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Kitagawa Tsukimaro (d. 1830) was a pupil of Kitagawa Utamaro, early name Kikumaro, changing the character for 'Kiku' in 1802 and taking the name Tsukimaro from 1804. He also used the art-names Bokutei, Kansetsu and Kansetsusai.
Entry
A sumo wrestler wearing a ceremonial apron inscribed with its name, standing by the straw ring marking the centre circle.
The Sumo Wrestler Shiganomine Otokichi, Shiga[no]mine Otokichi.
Bickford reads the name of the wrestler as Yotsugamine Otokichi (L. Bickford, Sumo and the Woodblock Print Masters, Tokyo 1944, 66). The print was apparently designed to celebrate the wrestler's promotion in III/1819. It was later reissued with a few changes, probably as soon as 1821: a title was added, A Series of Three on Sumo, Sumo sanbantsuzuki, with the emblem of the Taikogawa above; the straw forming the edge of the ring was not printed in gold, as here; four poems were replaced by three others, by Chikusotei Kazunori, Kei?do Chiyosumi and Dondontei [Wataru].
The same wrestler was also portrayed wearing a kimono, with two swords, and holding a pipe and smoking set in a commercially issued print by Katsukawa Shunei, (see Bickford, op. cit., 66).
Four poems by Gobaian Azemono; his housewife, Gobaian kafu Kagetsudo Rishu; another of Gobaian’s housewives; onajiku Sensentei Riyu me (female); and his (Gobaian’s) steward, onajiku shitsuji Baiso Momotori(?). The poems are all haiku, rare on Edo surimono. For the poets, cf. RP-P-1958-599.
Issued by the poets, 1819/III
Signature reading: Kansetsusai Tsukimaro zu
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 491
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Kitagawa Tsukimaro, A Sumo Wrestler, Japan, 1819', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.318712
(accessed 28 December 2024 01:18:20).