Kuniyoshi: Original Preparatory Drawing of a Cat Playing with a Ball at New Year's

Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861)
Title: Original drawing of a Cat Interrupting a New Year's game of temari

Date: ca 1830s-1840s

Original preparatory drawing for an ehon (illustrated book). Kuniyoshi flexes his storytelling genius here, creating a coherent scene without a single wasted stroke of his brush. We see a group of young women clustered on the floor; they wear the long-sleeved kimono (furisode) of unmarried girls. They have been playing the new year’s game involving a temari ball; we know it is the new year by the shrine carefully placed in the background with the large ceremonial rice cakes topped with citrus. A man has just entered the scene, and he sees that the girls’ activities have been interrupted by a cat, who has grabbed the ball to the surprise of everyone in the scene. There are some blank cartouches that Kuniyoshi has drawn, so this might be intended for a book that is not a gokan, also because there is not much blank space for the tightly-spaced writing found in gokan. Kuniyoshi is known for his love of cats and for his amusing and highly studied depictions of cats; in a famous image in the 1877 “Kyosai gadan” illustrated book, his student Kyosai shows Kuniyoshi’s studio with numerous cats surrounding Kuniyoshi, including one tucked into the master’s kimono as he leans over to demonstrate his brushwork to a student.

Gokan (illustrated novels) were the main vehicle of Japanese fiction in terms of quantity throughout the 19th century, and due to their popularity about 40 or 50 new titles a year were produced from about 1807 to 1867. Gokan were the most elaborate of the kusazoshi, “grass books”, which included serial productions for works that included the blockbuster Inaka Genji. All kusazoshi used smaller sizes of paper, and the illustrations were a critical part of their composition and appeal. As almost all kusazoshi were produced in Edo, we could see why Kuniyoshi would be a favorite of publishers and authors, as his imagination was without limit and he could produce lively narrative illustrations in a way that knew no equal. We can appreciate the mastery of his brush even in this small format, with almost every aspect of each figure coming out fully formed and posed perfectly, with no corrections. Interestingly, text and illustrations shared each page, with the illustration drawn first and then the dialogue/narration was added to fill up the blank space. We can see here how there is quite a bit of blank space around the figures. Provenance: Samuel Tuke

Condition: Very good condition overall. Unbacked. Binding holes at left.

Dimensions: 17 x 20.4 cm

SKU: DRW506