About This Print
 Murata Shinpachi (1836-1877) | Portraying Saigō's close friend Murata Shinpachi who committed suicide after witnessing Saigō's death in the aftermath of the Battle of Shiroyama on September 24, 1877. Murata had served in the Imperial Household and been part of the 1871-1873 Iwakura Mission to Europe and the United States. He resigned from the government along with Saigō after his return and went on to head the shigakkō artillery school, part of a system of private schools in Kagoshima supported by Saigō and set up "as a way to inculcate samurai values [in] the last generation of birthright samurai."1 Murata was to command Saigō's 3rd division. He is buried along with Saigō at the Nanshū Cemetery in Kagoshima. It is one of six prints in the series titled Kagoshima eimei kurabe, loosely translated as "Kagoshima Competition for Glory". Each of the six prints portrays an important rebel figure in the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion, as shown below. See the article Prints of the Satsuma Rebellion on this site for more information on the Rebellion and the prints it spawned. |
All Six Prints
Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #2273 |
| Title or Description | Murata Shinpachi 村田新八 |
| Series | Kagoshima Competition for Glory 鹿児島英名竸 [鹿児島英名競] Kagoshima eimei kurabe |
| Artist | Utagawa Kunimasa IV (1848-1920) |
| Signature | Takenōchi Hidehisa 竹内栄久 [the birth name of Utagawa Kunimasa IV, as shown in the publisher's cartouche below] |
| Seal | no seal |
| Publication Date | 1877 (likely September 1, 1877, based upon date seal present on some prints in the series) |
| Publisher |  left: 版元 [publisher] 通新石町十二番地 [address] 福田熊治郎 [Hasegawa Sakujirō] right: 画工 [artist] 通新石町二十四番地 [address] 竹内栄久 [Takenōchi Hidehisa, artist's birth name] |
| Impression | excellent |
| Colors | fair - fading and toning |
| Condition | poor – extensive wrinkling, period backing sheet; paper loss along left margin; bottom right and within image |
| Genre | ukiyo-e; rekishi-e |
| Miscellaneous | |
| Format | vertical oban |
| H x W Paper | 13 3/4 x 9 1/4 in. (34.9 x 23.5 cm) |
| Literature | |
| Collections This Print | Tokyo Metropolitan Library 1594-C8-3 |
4/4/2020 created
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