Edo Period Ukiyo-e Warrior/Tango no Sekku (Utagawa Hiroshige)

This is a work by the second-generation Utagawa Hiroshige. The piece is mounted in a simple A4-sized acrylic painting board with a wooden frame. It is marked as Bunkyu 3 (1863), but it may be a later impression from the late Edo period. A disciple of the first-generation Hiroshige, his surname was originally Suzuki, later changed to Morita, and his given name was Shinpe. He used the art names Ichiyusai, Ichiryusai, Ryusai, Ryusho, and Kisai. He became a pupil of the first-generation Hiroshige during the Koka era and was initially called Shigenobu. He created bijin-ga (pictures of beautiful women), kacho-ga (bird-and-flower paintings), and musha-e (warrior prints), and later began creating landscape paintings, gradually approaching the creative domain of the first generation. In Ansei 5 (1858), the first-generation Hiroshige passed away, and the following year, in Ansei 6, he became the son-in-law of Hiroshige's adopted daughter Tatsu, inheriting the name of the second-generation Hiroshige. In Keio 1 (1865), due to a 20-year age difference leading to marital disputes, he divorced and subsequently reverted to the Morita surname. He moved to Yokohama, using the art name Kisai Ryusho, and created label paintings for export tea boxes, earning the nickname "Chabako Hiroshige." In December of Ansei 6 (1859), he boldly featured the golden carp on the keep of Nagoya Castle under the moonlight in the "Famous Views of Various Provinces: True View of Nagoya in Owari Province." He participated in the first-generation Hiroshige's late series "One Hundred Famous Views of Edo," and in the "Evening Scene of Rain at the Paulownia Field in Akasaka" among the 120 prints, he signed as "Second-generation Hiroshige." Among works signed "Ryusho," there are Yokohama-e and Kaika-e. In his hand-painted works, he is renowned for the "Yukun-zu" created during the Ansei period, signed "Shigenobu hitsu" with a vermilion square seal reading "Shigenobu." He passed away on September 17, Meiji 2 (1869), at the age of 44.