Yoshitoshi - 28 Famous Murders with Verse

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

Kasamori Osen was a waitress at the Kagiya teashop near Kasamori Inari Shrine in Yanaka, in Edo.  Osen was made famous as a local beauty by a number of famous ukiyo-e artists of the period.  Harunobu was the first artist to use her a subject in his prints. In this print, she is seen being murdered by her step-father, however other accounts say she married a palace spy and lived a long and happy life.

This series dates from quite early in Yoshitoshi's career, when he was about twenty-seven, two decades before his well-known masterpieces such as his great series "One Hundred Aspects of the Moon" (1885-1892), and "New Forms of Thirty-Six Ghosts" (1889-1892).

The series contains text by what is claimed to be ten different writers.

Date: 1867

Publisher: Sano-ya Tomigorō (Kinseidō)

Condition: Very good color. Backed on Edo-era paper. Cropped as shown.

Genre: Ukiyo-e

Medium: Woodblock Print

http://www.yoshitoshi.net/series/murders.html