Toshusai Sharaku (act. 1794-95)

Tanikaze and Daidozan

Details

Toshusai Sharaku (act. 1794-95)
Tanikaze and Daidozan
Signed Sharaku ga, inscribed Tanikaze Daidozan
Ink and light color on paper; mounted on paper board
13 1/8 x 9 1/8in. (33.2 x 23.2cm.)

Provenance

Kobayashi Bunshichi (1861-1923)
Henri Vever (1854-1943), sold Sotheby's, London, Highly Important Japanese Prints, Illustrated Books and Drawings, from the Henri Vever Collection: Part I, 26 March 1974, no. 264

Literature

Zauho kankokai, ed., text by Yamaguchi Keizaburo, Sharaku, vol. 7 of Ukiyoe taikei (Compendium of ukiyo-e) (Tokyo: Shueisha, 1973), p. 76.

Yoshida Teruji, ed., vol. 2 of Teibon ukiyoe jiten (Ukiyo-e encyclopedia) (Tokyo: Gabundo, 1974), p. 46.

Takahashi Yoji, ed., Yamaguchi Keizaburo, supervisor, Sharaku, vol. 4 of Taiyo: Ukiyoe shirizu (Taiyo: Ukiyo-e series) (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1975), p. 55.

Jack Hillier, Japanese Prints & Drawings from the Vever Collection, vol. 2 (London and New York: Philip Wilson Publishers for Sotheby Parke Bernet and Rizzoli International, 1976), no. 620.

Narazaki Muneshige, Utamaro, vol. 6 of Nikuhitsu ukiyoe (Ukiyo-e paintings) (Tokyo: Shueisha, 1981), pl. 31.

Asahi Shinbunsha, ed., Sakikaoru Edo no joseibi: Nikuhitsu ukiyoe meisaku ten (The blooming and fragrant beauty of Edo women: Exhibition of masterpieces of ukiyo-e paintings) (Tokyo: Asahi Shinbunsha, 1984), pl. 26.

Yamaguchi Keizaburo, Sharaku no zenbo (The complete aspects of Sharaku) (Tokyo: Tokyo Shoseki, 1994), pl. 155.

Asano Shugo, Suwa Haruo and Yamaguchi Keizaburo, Toshusai Sharaku gensundai zensakuhin (Catalogue raisonnée of works of Toshusai Sharaku with actual-size plates) (Tokyo: Shogakukan, 2002), pl. 148.

Tokyo National Museum, The Tokyo Shinbun, NHK and NHK Promotions, eds., Tokubetsuten Sharaku Sharaku (Tokyo: Tokyo National Museum, The Tokyo Shinbun, NHK and NHK Promotions, 2011), fig. 3, p. 233.

Exhibited

"Sakikaoru Edo no joseibi: Nikuhitsu ukiyoe meisaku ten" (The blooming and fragrant beauty of Edo women: Exhibition of masterpieces of ukiyo-e paintings), shown at the following venues:
Matsuzakaya Department Store, Nagoya, 1984.1.4-11
Shinsaibashi Sogo Department Store, Osaka, 1984.1.27-2.8
Nihonbashi Tokyu Department Store, Tokyo, 1984.2.17-29
Shijo Takashimaya Department Store, Kyoto, 1984.4.19-5.1

Lot Essay

The fat boy, Daidozan, was a prodigy of strength. He appears in three prints by Sharaku. Here, the famous sumo wrestler Tanikaze gestures toward the boy, who is cradling a delicate origami crane in his pudgy fingers.

This drawing, thought to be a preparatory drawing for a print that either was not published or has not survived, is one of a set of ten drawings for sumo wrestler prints. The other nine, in the collection of the important Tokyo art dealer/collector Kobayashi Bunshichi (1861-1923), are known only from photographs; they were all destroyed, along with the rest of Kobayashi's collection of 2,000 paintings and 100,000 prints, in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 (see fig. 1). This was a disaster; his collection was regarded at the time as the greatest in Japan. The drawing offered here is the only one of his group of wrestler images to survive.

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