Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 月岡 芳年 (Japanese, 1839-1892) Fujiwara Yasumasa gekka roteki zu (Fujiwara Yasumasa plays the flute by moonlight)

拍品描述

A Japanese woodblock print triptych, signed Oju Taiso Yoshitoshi sha, sealed Taiso and Yoshitoshi, published by Akiyama Buemon, 12 February 1883 Size:(36.8 x 72 cm (triptych)) Qty: (3) Provenance:British private collection Notes: Please refer to a tryptich sold at Christie's, New York, 16 Sep 2025, lot 210; another at Sotheby's, London, 6 - 14 December 2021, lot 137. There are several impressions housed in Museums and Institutions, including the LCMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), colleciton no. M.84.31.137a-c; another in the British Museum, collection no. 2024,3020.1; another in National Museum of Asian Art, collection no. S1997.30a-c and the Art Institute of Chicago, collection no. 1984.568 Yoshitoshi's Masterpiece: Fujiwara Yasumasa plays the flute by moonlight Fujiwara no Yasumasa (958–1036) was a renowned musician at the Heian court. He became estranged from his brother, Kidomaru, when the latter chose a life of outlawry rather than serve under the powerful warrior Raiko. This print depicts a dramatic episode later popularised in kabuki where Kidomaru attempts to rob Yasumasa of his brocade robes, but is halted and mesmerised by the sound of his brother’s flute. The complete title of this triptych is 'Meiji jugo mizunoe-uma kishu kaiga kyoshinkai shuppinga: Fujiwara no Yasumasa gekka roteki zu' (“Exhibited at the Painting Appreciation Society, autumn 1882: Fujiwara no Yasumasa Playing the Flute by Moonlight”). After seeing the original painting at the exhibition, the publisher Akiyama Buemon commissioned this print the following year. The subject was not new to Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. His teacher Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797–1861), as well as Utagawa Kunisada (1786–1865), had already produced works based on the same scene. Yoshitoshi himself first tackled it in 1868 in a different triptych, revisited it in 1879 in a small background cartouche accompanying a portrait of a courtesan, and returned to it again in a painting submitted to the government-sponsored Naikoku Kaiga Kyoshinkai exhibition in 1882. He followed this with the present triptych in 1883, and later with an oban print in his One Hundred Aspects of the Moon series in 1888. This version which is commonly known as The Flute Player Triptych is widely regarded as Yoshitoshi’s masterpiece.

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