UTAGAWA KUNIYASU: kakuban surimono (21.4 x 18.6 cm.); the wrestler Inazuma performing in the dohyo for the first time as grand champion, poems by Tachikawa Emba and Inazuma, signed Kuniyasu ga- good impression, slightly faded and rubbed, silver dust and gauffrage

Details
UTAGAWA KUNIYASU: kakuban surimono (21.4 x 18.6 cm.); the wrestler Inazuma performing in the dohyo for the first time as grand champion, poems by Tachikawa Emba and Inazuma, signed Kuniyasu ga- good impression, slightly faded and rubbed, silver dust and gauffrage

Lot Essay

PUBLISHED:
Sumo and the Woodblock Print Masters, pl. 34

The poem on the right by Tatekawa Emba II (1791-1862) is a thirty-one syllable kyoka which puns on the name of the wrestler by likening his presence to a "flash of lightning" (inazuma). The poem to the left is a seventeen-syllable senryu by Inazuma himself.