One of Kunisada´s
large bijin series from which the first part has been designed around 1844/45 when Kunisada changed
his name to Toyokuni.
After poet no. 37, except no. 47, Kunisada changed the design
and the rest of the series has no longer a series title.
Andrew Kowalczuk found two prints (no. 78 and no. 93) which
shows the earlier design and a higher poet number than no. 47,
so that the respective poet is represented by two images.
In 2006 Yorie from artelino.com
first poitned out, that the number in the cartouche states
no. 85, however, the portrait on the right page depicts Saigyo
Hoshi and his poem which would normally be no. 86 in the
traditional order of the poets.
In 2009 Meredith Hudman from the San Antonio Museum of Art
investigated the complete series and she found out that on a
total of 21 prints the print respectivly the poet numbers vary
from the traditional order (from oldest (7th century) to
'newest' (13th century)). She presents the following list:
[first number is the print/poet number in this series, second
number is the one in the traditional order] 30/31; 31/32; 32/33;
33/34; 34/35; 35/36; 36/37; 37/30; 47/49; 48/47; 49/48; 80/81;
81/82; 82/83; 83/84; 84/85; 85/86; 86/87; 87/88; 88/89; 89/80.
Many thanks to all! And especially to Jeff Hopewell who offered
many informations in 2013 and corrected in 3/2018 some mistakes
with the signatures. He also wrote, that he find out, that the
„prints 59 to 100 seem to be based on the book covers and
illustrations of the Nise Murasaki inaka Genji, which Kunisada
produced from 1829 to 1842.“ (Jeff’s list is added as apendix to
part two of the prints.)
You can find the text
of the "hundred poems" and an English translation at:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/japanese/hyakunin/index.html
to Data part
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