Yoshitoshi - Muraoka of Konoe Family Bound with Ropes

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 

Lives of Modern People, A Supplement of the Yamato Newspaper.

Yoshitoshi shows us the chief Lady-in-Waiting of the Konoe Clan and active supporter of the loyalists who opposed the relaxed policy of the shogunate to foreign trade. As a result of her beliefs she was arrested and badly tortured in in 1858 during the Ansei purges. Despite the privations, she remained steadfastly loyal and she became a folk hero following the collapse of the shogunate government a decade later. Muraoka is pictured bound by rope, her figure distorted with discomfort; she holds a hank of hair between her teeth. Yoshitoshi has drawn her much younger than her actual seventy years. Note the blackened teeth and painted eyebrows of a married woman. Yoshitoshi has pictured her sympathetically since her support for the traditional regime echoed his own conservatism.

One of the finest female portraits by Yoshitoshi. There is in this portrayal a sensuousness and tenderness that belie the horrid circumstances of the subject matter.

Date: 1887

Condition: Good condition. Not backed, some dirt and creases as shown. Embossing on her collar.

Genre: Ukiyo-e

Medium: Woodblock Print

https://calisphere.org/item/1614f5d4d26edfa5847d52dd027fb01e/

https://ukiyo-e.org/image/metro/212-K001-333