Yoshitoshi's 'Yoshitoshi's 'Firemen's Standards of all Great Districts' (1876)

Introduction

Firemen were well respected in Yoshitoshi's time, their prestige equal to sumo wrestlers and actors. Fire brigades were well organised in all districts, and were often quite competitive with one another. This is the second series Yoshitoshi produced featuring firemen (see Isami no kotobuki - Keyes #165), and he produced several individual prints as well (see #59 in the Yūbin hōchi shinbun series).

Technical details

• Dates: 10/1876
• Size: Ōban
• Signed: ōju Yoshitoshi hitsu (in kana)
• Seals: Unread
• Publishers: Ōkura Magobei
• Block carvers: Horikō Gin

Previous cataloguings

	Roger. S. Keyes, "Courage and Silence: A Study of the Life and
		Color Woodblock Prints of Tsukioka Yoshitoshi 1839-1892",
		Cinncinnati, 1982

where it appears as series #338.

	Eric van den Ing, Robert Schaap, " Beauty and Violence: Japanese 
		Prints by Yoshitoshi 1839-1892 ", 
		Havilland, Eindhoven, 1992

 where it appears as series #30, pages 55, 120.

This page (and list) is not necessarily complete; the series is not well documented, and there may be yet other prints which have not yet come to our attention. If you know of any prints from this series which aren't listed here, or have either i) information about any errors on the page, ii) better images than the ones below, or iii) missing information about individual prints (e.g. publisher, exact date) please let us know.

The Prints

If we have a higher-quality image, that image can be viewed by clicking on the "Large Image" link, which gives the size of the image (for the benefit of those on slow links). Sometimes there is more than one, if our best-quality image has issues (e.g. trimmed margins).

Thumbnail	Large image	Number	Date	Title (Kanji)	Title (Rōmaji)	Title (English)	Description
		#1	10/1876			A fireman holding the standard (matoi) for district one over his shoulder.
		#2	10/1876			A fireman seen from the back, holding the standard for district two.
		#3	10/1876			A fireman holding the standard for district three.
		#4	10/1876			A fireman throwing water over the clothes of a fireman with the standard for district four.
		#5	10/1876			A seated fireman holding the standard for district five.
		#6	10/1876			A fireman, looking left, holding the standard for district six.
		#7	10/1876			Frontal view of a fireman holding the standard for district seven.
		#8	10/1876			A fireman seen from the back holding the standard for district eight.
		#9	10/1876			A fireman carrying the standard for district nine.
		#10	10/1876			A fireman, looking to the left, carrying the standard for district ten.