Ochiai Yoshiiku (落合芳幾)

Condition Report

Impression & Colours

Excellent. Strong keyblock, with the article text sharp and legible throughout. The colours are fresh: deep violet and green in the masthead banner and the striped robes, a full, even red in the border, and a soft blue ground with visible printed texture.

Paper

Very good overall. The sheet has been slightly trimmed, as is usual for these newspaper prints. The trimming is visible at the left edge, where the small round seal above the publisher's cartouche is partly cut. The publisher's and carver's cartouches are both complete. The image and text area is clean.

⚠ Please examine all photographs carefully. They form part of the condition description.

A Ghost Print With a Twist

A man in a striped kimono has seized a long-haired woman in trailing white by the arm and is hauling her upright. She twists away with one fist pressed to her mouth, her hair loose down her back and her robes pooling on the floor. Half-hidden behind her, a second figure still holds his palms pressed together in prayer. Everything about her says ghost, and that is the point of the story, because she is not one.

Yoshiiku draws the arrest rather than the haunting. The man's face is set in a grimace and his grip is firm on her forearm. Her long unbound hair was the standard sign of a yūrei in ghost prints for generations; here it has become the disguise that has just failed. The figures are rendered in a cool register of blue, grey, violet and green, and the red frame around the whole sheet returns it to the printed page.

The Story — What the Article Says

The article printed across the upper half of the sheet tells the story. A farmer in a village in Chichibu district, Musashi province, lost his wife to illness and grieved for her deeply. One night, as a mountain temple bell sounded, her faint figure appeared at his bedside, and it vanished when he raised his head. He went to her grave with incense and flowers. That night she came again, and this time she spoke: she could not rest, she said, because she still longed for the kosode and hair ornaments she had treasured in life.

He laid them out beside his pillow, and by morning they were gone. He was relieved, believing her attachment was settled. A friend he told the story to was less convinced and offered to sit up with him. Near midnight the ghost returned and said that now it was money she could not let go of. The two men grabbed her and found they were holding the wife from the house next door, disguised as a ghost.

Angels on the Masthead — Japan's First Newspaper Nishiki-e

Two winged Western putti carry the banner reading Tōkyō Nichinichi Shimbun across the top of the sheet. One is draped in violet, the other in green. The angels and the red border were the visual signature of the series, and they set the look of the newspaper print in Tokyo.

The Tōkyō Nichinichi Shimbun was founded in February 1872 as Tokyo's first daily newspaper. Its founders were the gesaku writer Jōno Denpei, the bookshop clerk Nishida Densuke, and Yoshiiku himself. He was therefore illustrating a paper he had helped to establish.

In 1874 the Ningyōchō publisher Gusokuya began issuing single-sheet colour versions of the paper's most striking stories, with Yoshiiku designing the images. The texts were written in plain, furigana-glossed prose that an ordinary reader could follow. Murders, affairs, frauds, acts of filial piety and hauntings were the staple subjects. The format quickly attracted competitors, among them Yoshitoshi's prints for the Yūbin Hōchi Shimbun. Within a few years it had faded as cheap illustrated dailies took over the market.

Ochiai Yoshiiku — Kuniyoshi's Pupil, Newspaper Founder

Yoshiiku (1833–1904) trained under Utagawa Kuniyoshi alongside Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. He made his name in the 1850s and 1860s with actor prints, beauties and warrior subjects. In the Meiji era he became one of the leading illustrators of the new newspapers. Where Yoshitoshi moved further into the theatrical and the violent, Yoshiiku stayed closer to reportage, which is exactly what a sheet like this one needed.

Collector's Note

Ghost and supernatural subjects are among the most sought-after sheets in the Tōkyō Nichinichi Shimbun series. This one adds a twist: the ghost turns out to be a neighbour in disguise. An impression of No. 911 is held in the University of Tokyo's newspaper collection, and the Bon collection at Keio University holds a group of sheets from the series. This example has strong colour, full publisher's and carver's cartouches, and a complete article.

Shipping: Shipped flat between acid-free tissue and rigid boards, via tracked and insured post. Ships from Germany.

Guarantee: Original Japanese woodblock print, 1875. Guaranteed authentic. Full refund if not as described.

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