About This Print
This print is one of fifty issued as part of the series Mirror of Army and Navy Heroes designed by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915) and published 1895-1896 by Inoue Kichijirō. The series depicts war heroes of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) as models of behavior and self-sacrifice. "Kiyochika’s 'heroes' range from an admiral reading a newspaper to sailors helping a blinded comrade touch a cannon that has helped bring victory, and from an infantryman showing compassion to a Chinese youngster to officers and enlisted men cleaving heads and bayonetting the foe."1
In this print Lt. General Yamaji Motoharu, commander of the First Division of the Second Army Corps, is shown relaxing, likely after his victory at Port Arthur, while his troops celebrate.
In this print Lt. General Yamaji Motoharu, commander of the First Division of the Second Army Corps, is shown relaxing, likely after his victory at Port Arthur, while his troops celebrate.
Lt. General Yamaji Motoharu - the "One-eyed Dragon"
 | Lt. General Yamaji (1841-1897), who had lost one eye as a child, was a noted military tactician, who served in the Sino-Japanese War as the commander of the First Division of the Second Army Corps. He commanded the troops that attacked and captured Port Arthur and then went on to commit atrocities in the wake of the victory, in what became known as the "Port Arthur massacre." Called by his troops the "One-eyed Dragon," he was described as "the bravest of the brave, the warrior as modest and unassuming as he was daring, astern and resolute, the very incarnation of the Japanese knightly spirit..."2 |
1 website of MIT Visualizing Cultures http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/21f/21f.027/throwing_off_asia_01/kiyochika_mirror_b.html
2 The New Far East (with Twelve Illustrations from Special Designs by Kubota Beisen, of Tokio), Arthur Diósy, Cassell and Company, Ltd., 5th Edition, 1904, p. 114.
Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #879 |
| Title or Description | Lt. General Yamaji Motoharu Rikugun Chūjō Yamaji Motoharu-kun 陸軍中将 山地元治君 |
| Series | Mirror of Army and Navy Heroes Rikukai gunjin kōmyō kagami 陸海軍人高名鑑 |
| Artist | Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915) |
| Signature | Kiyochika |
| Seal | Kiyo and Chika |
| Publication Date | January 1895 - as shown in left margin |
| Publisher | Publisher Inoue Kichijirō 井上吉次郎 |
| Impression | excellent |
| Colors | excellent |
| Condition | good - left margin partially trimmed; remnants of backing along left margin; minor soiling and wrinkling |
| Genre | ukiyo-e - senso-e (Sino-Japanese War) |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Format | vertical oban |
| H x W Paper | 14 x 9 1/4 in. (35.6 x 23.5 cm) |
| H x W Image | 12 7/8 x 8 3/4 in. (32.7 x 22.2 cm) |
| Literature | |
| Collections This Print | British Library shelfmark: 16126.d.2(16) |
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