JAPANESE ART > KUCHI-E WOODBLOCK PRINTS > ATTACK ON THE HONNOJI TEMPLE

Lot 00640
N.1 kuchi-e woodblock print

Watanabe Seitei

ATTACK ON THE HONNOJI TEMPLE

Year: 1894
Condition: very good
Size: 30 x 22 cm

SOLD

Compelling kuchi-e (口絵) woodblock print produced in November 1894 by the publisher Shunyodo (春陽堂) in Tokyo and made by the artist Watanabe Seitei (渡辺省亭) as the frontispiece of the novel "Yasuda Sakubei" (安田作兵衛), by the writer Murakami Namiroku (村上浪六).

On the right of the work a court lady is reading a letter. On the left we see, instead, the samurai Yasuda Sakubei, one of the protagonists of the Honnoji Incident (本能寺の変), the famous attack occurred on 21 June 1582 that ended with the fire of the Honnoji temple, in Kyoto, and with the forced suicide of the daimyo Oda Nobunaga (織田信長), whose remains were never found among the rubble of the temple, giving rise to a wide range of popular legends.

The print is in very good general condition, thanks also to an effective relining carried out on the back with another sheet of Japanese washi paper (和紙).

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