Posted by Nils U. Bosshard on March 24, 1998 at 02:45:00:
I have just bought a print by Hiroshige showing a man (samurai?) and a woman kneeling before him. The information given with the print was "Ogura modoki Hyakuninshu, Fujiwara no Kiyosuke ason".
The print looks exactly as coming from a series by Kuniyoshi called "An Imitation of the Ogura Selection of the Hundred Poets", an illustration of which is in Basil Stewart's "A guide to Japanese prints", Plate 52-3.
My questions are:
(1) Is the title of the Kuniyoshi series the translation of the one given to my Hiroshige print?
(2) Were there two separate series by Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige or was it a joint series by the two artists? (There is no mention of this in Basil Stewart's book)
(3) The Hiroshige print has the number "12" in Japanese on the margin. Could this mean that it is the 12th print (act?) of the series; as far as I know, the play usually ends with the 11th act?
Thank you for any help!