Kobayashi Kiyochika

1847-1915

Mirror of Famous Army and Navy Men: Engineer Lieutenant Onoguchi Tokuji
(Rikukai gunjin komyo kagami: Onoguchi Tokuji)

signed Kiyochika with artist's seal, dated on left margin, Meiji nijuhachinen ichigatsu (Meiji 28 [1895], January), followed by the publisher details of Inoue Kichijiro (active late 19th cent), 1895

oban tate-e 14 by 9 1/4 in., 35.7 by 23.5 cm

Private First Class Onoguchi Tokuji was a young army engineer who led an ordnance team in the successful blasting of two sets of iron-plated gates at the northern entrace of the Jinzhou Fortress which was an important Chinese stronghold in defense of the Liaodong Peninsula. With seemingly impenatrable thirty-foot high brick walls, Onoguchi's daring mission on November 6, 1894, became a favorite subject of numerous woodblock prints, emphasizing the determined boy hero's youth and valour.

References:
Rhiannon Paget, in Hu, et al., Conflicts of Interest: Art and War in Modern Japan, Saint Louis Art Museum, 2016, p. 134 (re: Onoguchi)
Ackland Art Museum, object no. 2014.40.7
Saint Louis Art Museum, object no. 241:2010
(inv. no. C-3032)

price: $700