About This Print

A spring day in Ueno Park with the cherry trees in bloom and strollers lingering by the recently erected bronze statue of Saigō Takamori, a leader in both the 1867 Meiji Reformation that overthrew the shogun, restoring the Meiji Emperor and bringing a modern government into power, and the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion which sought to overthrow that same government.Sitting on a rise near the main entrance to the park, the statue was designed by Takamura Kōun (1852-1934) and unveiled on December 18, 1898. Oriented so that it faces Edo Palace, it promotes Saigō in his earlier role "as the hero of the Restoration who led the imperial army in its takeover of Edo Castle, not as the disgruntled leader of samurai interests who had been forsaken by the Tokyo regime.”¹ The statue pictures Saigō in informal attire with his dog and conjures the earlier military leader, diplomat and "humanist who cherished slogan was 'Revere Heaven, love mankind' and "whose spiritual and physical magnanimity earned him the epithet 'Saigo the Great' and the adoration of an entire nation."²

Itoko traveled from distant Kagoshima to attend the unveiling ceremony with other members of the Saigo family.  She sat next to her late husband’s younger brother, the Marquis Saigo Tsugumichi, who had occupied high posts in the Meiji government, including minister of the navy and minister of the interior.  The illustrious gathering waited silently for the veil to be removed.  When the statue was finally uncovered, revealing the image, Itoko emitted a sudden shriek.  “It looks nothing like my husband,” she exclaimed.  She was immediately silenced and later reprimanded by Tsugumichi, out of regard for the “feelings of those many people who went to such trouble and expense to produce the statue.”  But Itoko would never overcome here embarrassment at the statue’s informal attire “for all the world to see” – because in life Saigo “was a man of the utmost decorum” who would have worn the formal “hakama and haori bearing the family crest, or a military uniform.”3