About This Print
Two figures square off against each other in a glaring contest accompanied by a verbal battle recorded in the upper left of the print between the "man on the right" 「人ノ右 」and the "man on the left" 「人ノ左 」. I have translated the title「睨ッ子」as "a glaring contest", but I'm ready to stand corrected. The print is neither signed or sealed and is not dated but appears to be a ponchi-e (political cartoon).1
click on image to enlarge
(for anyone who would like to translate or transcribe)
1 The earliest Japanese term for political cartoon—‘Punch picture’ (Ponchi-e ポンチ絵)—was invented in 1868 by a Japanese language news journal, the Kōko shinbun 江湖新聞 (the public news) published in the treaty port of Yokohama. The word endured until the early 1900s when it was slowly supplanted by the more familiar manga (cartoon), a broader term that came to mean not only single panel political cartoons but also four panel cartoons, comic strips, comic magazines and eventually animated cartoons. [Abstract of the article "‘Punch Pictures’: Localising Punch in Meiji Japan", p, 307-335, appearing in Asian Punches: A Transcultural Affair ,ed. Hans Harder, Barbara Mittler, Springer, 2013.]
Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #1977 |
| Title or Description |  睨ッ子 [睨っこ] Glaring ContestNote: The above is my guess at the meaning of the title |
| Artist | Unknown |
| Signature | unsigned |
| Seal | not sealed |
| Publication Date | not dated, likely sometime between 1890 and 1920 |
| Publisher | unknown |
| Carver | |
| Printer | |
| Impression | excellent |
| Colors | excellent |
| Condition | excellent - light toning throughout |
| Genre | manga; ponchi-e |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Format | chuban |
| H x W Paper | 9 3/8 x 6 7/16 in. (23.8 x 16.4 cm) |
| H x W Image | 8 5/16 x 5 9/16 in. (21.1 x 14.1 cm) |
| Literature | |
| Collections This Print | |
11/28/2018
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