Story Summation and Commentary by William Wetherall

Source: Nishiki-e Shinbun website of William Wetherall http://www.nishikie.com/stories/TNS-0822_family_of_thieves.html

The wife wears the sword in this family and burglarizes homes while her husband watches the street with their baby on his back. Here the family is going home after a successful heist. If caught in the act, she would probably say she was just cleaning house.

According to the seal, this nishikie was approved for publication the same month the article appeared in the newspaper.

The writer, Dondon, identifies himself as a "News bureau employee" (Shinbunkyoku no yatoido). Dondon is more fully Tentendo Dondon, aka Tentendo Shujin or just Shujin, among other pennames of the writer Takabatake Ransen, a popular writer hired by Tokyo nichinichi shinbun in 1873.

Japanese Transcription of Text

Source: University of Tokyo website http://t4.iii.u-tokyo.ac.jp/archives/digital_archives/ono_collection/contents/item.6.N035.html [note: website is no longer active]

柳下恵（りうかけい）は飴（あめ）を見て嬰児（ミどりご）を養（やしな）ふに良（よし）といい。
盗跖（とうせき）は飴を以て鎖（くさり）を開（あくる）に宜（よし）と
云（いへ）り。邪正（ちやせう）に因（より）て見所（ミどころ）の
違（ちが）ふ訓（たとへ）を甘んぜず。稠粘（ねばり）付（つい）
たる夫婦中（ふうふなか）倶（とも）に悪事（あくじ）を
引延（のバ）す。夜盗（よとう）は
昼（ひる）を白玉（しらたま）飴（あめ）売歩行（うりあるき）
つつ深更（まよなか）ハ。丈夫（おとこ）に扮（いでた）つ
女房が諸方（しよはう）の豪家（がうけ）へ忍（しの）
び入を。夫（おつと）は例（いつ）も児（こ）を抱（いだ）き。
戸口を守
り竊（ぬすみ）たる
衣類（いるゐ） 調度（ちやうど）
を
脊（せ）に負（お）ふて。語（かたら）ひながら帰れるハ
男女（なんによ）形装（かたち）を異（こと）にして。戯場（しばゐ）に脚色し
笠（かさ）松峠（とうげ）鬼神お松に髣髴（さもに）たる。
夏目（なつめ）にあらで網（あみ）の目（め）を漏（も）れぬ
天罰（てんばつ）報（むく）ひ来て。野州（やしう）橡（とち）木の
檻中（かんちう）につながれたるは
此頃なり
新聞局の雇人　鈍々述

Fit to Print: The Dawn of Journalism in Japanese Woodblock Prints

from the Lavenberg and Michels Collections

Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon

July 2021

This installation features more than 30 loans from two remarkably rich local resources, the Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints, and the Lee & Mary Jean Michels Collection. It was co-curated by Professors Akiko Walley (History of Art and Architecture) and Glynne Walley (East Asian Languages and Literatures) and JSMA Chief Curator Anne Rose Kitagawa. QR codes on selected labels allow visitors to access translations and explanations of the complex wordplay, imagery, and cultural context of these fascinating objects.

https://jsma.uoregon.edu/FittoPrint

UTAGAWAYoshiiku (歌川芳幾,1833-1904) Japanese;Meiji period, 1874 Family of Thieves, No. 822 of The TokyoDay-by-Day News (Tōkyō Nichi NichiShinbun) Ukiyo-e woodblock-printed “brocade newspaper” (shinbun nishiki-e) in vertical ōban format; ink and color on paper TheLavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints, IHL.0401

The prints on this wall all deal with the Satsuma Rebellion of 1877. The new Meiji government, founded in 1868, spent its first decade consolidating power by dismantling the samurai class that had constituted its predecessor, the Tokugawa shogunate. Soon the loss of privilege as well as the dislocations brought by rapid modernization provoked a reaction, and in 1877 former samurai and sympathizers in Kyushu rose up against the central government. They were led by Saigō Takamori (1828-1877), hero of the Meiji Restoration, whose career is recounted on this print. The rebellion was unsuccessful, and the defeat of ex-samurai at the hands of the Meiji government’s modern military was a turning point for the new government.

Translation of text on print:

They say Liuxia Hui sees candy and thinks it’s good fornurturing children, while Dao Zhi thinks candy good for opening locked doors.This proverb means that you see things differently depending on whether you’relooking for good or evil. A sweet metaphor, but not too sweet for this couple,who extended it to cover their own matrimonial misdeeds. Thieves by night, byday they walked around peddling shiratamacandy. At night the wife would disguise herself as a man and sneak into wealthyhouses everywhere while her husband would hold their child and guard the door.Then they would sling their stolen clothing and goods over their shoulders andgo home, talking merrily as they went. Their reversal of men’s and women’s rolesinspired a theatrical adaptation, for she reminded people of no one so much asDemongod Omatsu of Kasamatsu Pass. But while Omatsu may have evaded Natsume’sgaze, these thieves could not evade the Law’s net: Heaven’s punishment camedown upon them, and these days they are in jail in Tochigi, in Yashū.

By Dondon, an employee ofthe Newspaper Bureau

Notes:

The first sentence is a proverb that is usuallygiven as “Liuxia Hui [a virtuous statesman] sees candy and think it’s good fornurturing old people, while Dao Zhi [a famous robber] thinks it’s good foropening locks.” “Candy” in the world of the proverb was a sugary syrup that, the thinking went, wouldmake a lock easier to pick. Demongod Omatsu (Kijin Omatsu) was a popular kabukiheroine, a bandit who avenged herself on her husband’s murderer, Natsume (thetext puns on Natsume and ami no me or“holes in a net”).

(Glynne Walley, Associate Professor of East Asian Languages& Literatures)

Print Details

IHL Catalog	#401
Title or Description	Family of Thieves (八百廿貳号 No. 822)
Newspaper	Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shinbun  東京日々新聞
Artist	Utagawa Yoshiiku (1833-1904)
Signature	Ikkeisai Yoshiiku ga 一恵斎芳幾画
Seal	芳幾 Yoshiiku (see above)
Writer of Text	Takabatake Ransen 高畠 藍泉 (1838-1885), a Tokyo nichinichi writer who wrote most of the stories that accompanied Yoshiiku's pictures for Gusokuya's Tokyo nichinichi shinbun.1
Publication Date	October 12, 1874
Publisher	Gusokuya Kahei 具足屋嘉兵衛, [Marks: pub. ref. 085; seal ref. 24-031] seal reading: top: 人形町 Ningyōchō bottom: 具足屋 Gusokuya
Carver	Watanabe Horiei (渡辺彫栄)
Impression	excellent
Colors	excellent
Condition	excellent
Genre	ukiyo-e; nishiki-e shinbun
Miscellaneous
Format	vertical oban
H x W Paper	14 x 9 1/2 in. (35.6 x 24.1 cm)
Literature
Collections This Print	Waseda University Library 10 08059 0022; Art Research Center (ARC) Ritsumeikan University AcNo. MSZB07-01-31_00001(13032) The University of Tokyo Digital Archives Ono Hideo Collection N035; Tokyo Metropolitan Library 008-029-1; ARC 国会109-03-033; Hagi Uragami Museum U01164