Kunichika: Portrait of Emperor Meiji and Empress Shoken

Artist: Toyohara Kunichika (1835-1900)
Title: Closeup Portait of Meiji Emperor Meiji (Sold together with Empress Meiji Portrait)  Date: 1881
Series: Mirrors of Photographs of Contemporary Beauties (imayó bijin shashin kagami)

Okubi-e (”big head”) portrait of the thirty-year-old  Emperor in his westernized hair style and beard and in his uniform, probably created as part of a celebration for the New Year. The portrait is framed by a mirror with a strong imported red. “The mirror” in the Chinese character of the title of the series signifies “ ideal figure“ or “ model“. The image is accompanied by a tribute, which may be read as follows: “kimiga-yo zo ten-no umu mareni kikoyu”–– “Your Highness, your reign (the Emperor) seems to have been born from the heaven so phenomenal/unique/uncommon “.

Following ca. 700 years of  Shogunate Bakufu rules in Japan, the fifteenth Shogunate Tokugawa Yoshinobu returned his governing power to the Emperor Meiji Mutsuhito (1852-1912) by the Restoration of the Imperial Rule (taisei hókan) on October 14, 1867. The Great Command of the Imperial Power was declared on December 9 of the same year (òsei fukkó no dai-górei).  With this change the feudal system was to be replaced by a modern government, learning from the Western models, as Meiji, meaning the Enlightened Reign, and was completed by the end of his reign in 1912 although the Meiji Emperor himself did not directly executed the new decrees but all were issued in his name.

After the defeat of the Satsuma Rebellion (1877), the Meiji government tried to stabilize the country and unify under the Emperor as a symbol: “the very fact that the emperor himself could be depicted in a print marked a drastic break with pre-Meiji tradition“. (Thompson 1991).

Visual materials like these were used to make the Emperor nearer to the people. The first woodcut print of the Emperor was made on the occasion of his official tour in Fukui Prefecture in 1876, and was followed by many prints in late 1870s. This category of the prints were then classified as “gosho-e“, meaning pictures of the Emperor at Imperial Palace. The importance of this presentation was to show his public activities with his families. “Tenran-e“, exhibition pictures, a category of “gosho-e“ presented the scenes of their visits at the opening of exhibitions, concerts and theaters. The Emperor and the Empress as well as the members of the Japanese aristocratic class were depicted at parties and festivals. This strategy resulted in nourishing the public mind and attitude  of loyalty to the Imperial power during 1880s-90s.

The need of an official portrait of the Emperor became unavoidable and the Emperor was photographed in 1873 by Uchida Kyúichi. Edoardo Chiossone (1833-94), who arrived Japan in 1875 as an advisor for the Ministry of Finance, the government Printing Bureau of paper money, sketched the Emperor with contè as „go-shin-ei“, the Imperial portrait: one in his military/navy uniform, one in civilian clothes. These were photographed and distributed as the official images of the Emperor.

One of the characteristics of “gosho-e“ is its use of color in bright imported red in particular. Chemically synthesized colors of violet, blue and green were meant to be something new from the West, symbolizing the spirit of the Meiji policy.

The waka poetry (with 31 syllables) was more traditional way for the Emperor to approach the people. Under the teaching of his father, Emperor Kómei (1831-66) it is said that he began to write waka poems at the age of six. When he became the Emperor Meiji, the poetry was his means of expressing his thoughts and wishes as the head of the country, his personal concerns towards soldiers and their families, and his sincere feelings and sympathies towards the people. The Emperor Mutsuhito is known as a man of poetry and the author of 93,032 waka poems, from which 1687 of them  was compiled later as “The Collection of Poems by the Emperor Meiji“ (Meiji Ten-nó gyo-shú )(1922). He contributed to consolidate this tradition ”ta-go-kai hajime“ as a court ceremony of the New Year. His first New Year court poetry party was held in January 1869 among court nobles, eminent persons, and court members. In 1874 the common people was allowed to send in their poems and in 1879 the selected poems were publicly read. In 1882, a year later than this print, the poems of the Emperor as well as the selected ones from the people were published in the newspaper. 

During his early time as emperor, the administrator of the Poetry at court, Sanjó Nishi Suemoto  was the only person who was allowed to read his poems. Later the chief of the Poetry Division at court, Takasaki Masakaze risked his head by publishing one of the poems, when Takasaki had thought the best way to encourage the people during the Russian-Japan War (1904). Later the sacred poetry of the Emperor became the teaching for the people and published in newspapers.

Kunichika was requested (perhaps by the publisher) to make an Imperial portraits, as his signature indicates in the first month of the new year of 1881: 

For more than a thousand years, a portrait of the Emperor and Empress was forbidden. This is one of the few “big head” portraits of the Emperor and Empress Meiji and is quite scarce. With thanks to Michiko Sato Grube for her research.

Condition: Excellent impression and color. Very good condition. With a light backing and an unread Japanese seal, verso.

Dimensions: ôban (35.3 x 24.8 cm)
Signature: Upon Order Toyohara Kunichika hitsu 

SKU: KCA089B