Dong Ping (Tō Hei), from the series The Five Tiger Generals of “Heroes of the Water Margin,” No. 4 (Suikoden Go Ko-shōgun: Sono Yon) Artist: Yashima Gakutei (Japanese, ca. 1786–1868)

ca. 1820, possibly 1818 (Year of the Tiger)

Asian Art

By appointment, Duffy Study Room

八島岳亭　「水滸傳 五虎将軍 其四　董平」 江戸時代


The Five Tiger Generals series derives from a fantastical novel written during China’s Ming dynasty titled Shuihu zhuan and known in Japan as Suikoden, or Heroes of the Water Margin. The story was appropriated in Japan and likely reached its peak there in 1818, when this print was possibly made. Dong Ping, the General of Double Spears, is depicted in elaborate Chinese attire while playing a flute and sitting cross-legged on an exotic tiger-skin mat on a chilly-looking tiled veranda. Above his head is a poem in Chinese and, to his right, one in Japanese.

Medium

Surimono, shikishi-ban from a pentaptych set; polychrome woodblock print with brass and silver guaffrage

Dimensions

sheet: 8 1/4 × 7 1/2 in. (21 × 19 cm)

Credit Line

Promised gift of Virginia Shawan Drosten and Patrick Kenadjian, B.A. 1970

Loan number

ILE2017.30.58

Geography

Japan

Culture

Japanese

Period

Edo period (1615–1868)

Classification

Prints

Disclaimer

Note: This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect the Yale University Art Gallery’s complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of records is ongoing.

Provenance
Joan B. Mirviss (dealer), New York; sold to Virginia Shawan Drosten and Patrick Kenadjian, Koenigstein im Taunus, Germany, 2003 (on loan to the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., 2017–present)
Bibliography
  • Sadako Ohki and Adam Haliburton, The Private World of Surimono: Japanese Prints from the Virginia Shawan Drosten and Patrick Kenadjian Collection (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Art Gallery, 2020), 38–41, no. 5, ill
Object copyright
No Copyright - United States
Additional information

Object/Work type

color woodcuts, surimono

Inscriptions

Fukunoya 福迺屋\r\n\r\nChūkan gitan dare no souken\r\ntsūzoku yomi kitaru Suikoden\r\ntada osoruru wa gonin otoko date\r\niu koto nakare Osaka Karigane ren\r\n\r\n--Whose shoulders bear the heart of loyalty and the spirit of righteous acts?\r\nReading the popular Tales of Water Margin\r\nWe fear the Magnificent Five Men \r\nNot to say a word, the men from the Karigane Club in Osaka.\r\n\r\n\r\n忠肝義膽誰雙肩\r\n通俗讀来水滸傳\r\n堪恐五人男伊達\r\n莫言大坂雁金連\r\n\r\n\r\nFukufukutei Kanenari 福々亭金成 (Reading from left to right, unconventional.)\r\n\r\nTora no sumu/ senri mo onaji/ harukage ni/ ryuu no koe kiku/ fuki zome no fue\r\n\r\n----All the thousand miles where the tiger resides\r\nblown in the spring wind\r\nthe voice of a dragon can be heard\r\nfrom the first song from this flute.\r\n\r\n\r\nとらの春む　千里もおなし　春風尓　竜の声きく　吹そ免のふえ

Signed

Gakutei Sadaoka hitsu

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