About This Print
In this print, originally created for volume two of the six volume elementary school morals textbook Nishikie Shūshindan ("Brocade Pictures for Moral Education"), Yoshitoshi depicts a young Wang Lan (206-278) protecting his older half-brother Wang Xiang (185-269) from the wrath of his mother, who favored her own son. Both brothers were to grow up and become important statesmen during the Chinese Three Kingdoms period (220-280).
For more information about shūshindan (moral education) and the prints included in, or associated with, the illustrated textbooks Nishikie Shūshindan, see the article Brocade Pictures for Moral Education on this site.
A Lesson in Sibling HarmonySource: The Confucian Four Books for Women (Nü sishu),Xiang Wang and Ann A Pang White, Oxford University Press, 2018. p.267.
The story of Wang Xiang and Wang Lan is told as follows:
Explanatory Cartouche and Transcription
Wang Xiang 王祥 of the Jin dynasty [during the period of the Three Kingdoms], had a stepmother Madame Zhu 朱氏. During the winter months, his stepmother missed the taste of fish. Xiang would lie down on the frozen river to thaw the water in order to catch carp for her. But his stepmother often abused him, contrary to ritual propriety. Her biological son Wang Lan 王覽 always voluntarily shared labor with his stepbrother. Madame Xhu then began to abuse Xiang's wife. Lan's wife also chose to labor together with sisten-in-law Si. Their mother finally realized her errors and loved all of them.
王覽の悌 月岡芳年 1882年頃
王覽の悌
晋の王覽の母朱氏覽の兄祥を遇する甚だ苛刻なり覽幼なる時
兄の時々撻たるゝを見涕泣して其母を抱き之を諌む祥父を喪
して後益ゝ時の譽あり朱氏之を疾ミ密に祥を毒殺せんとす覽之
を知り母の祥に與ふる酒を取る祥毒あるを疑ひ争ふて與へず
母遽に奪ふて覆す是より母祥に饌を與ふる時ハ覽必ず先之を
嘗む故に孝友恭恪の名大に顕れ後仕へて光祿?大夫の官に昇る
Yoshitoshi designed twelve aiban-size color prints along with all thirty-three black and white illustrations for the six volumes of Brocade Prints for Moral Obligations, issued between March 1882 and July 1884. Between one and three of Yositoshi's color prints were inserted, each print being folded in half, in the front of each book.
Many of Yoshitoshi's black and white illustrations later became the basis of single-sheet oban-size color prints designed by a number of his students, as is explained in the notes to the print titled Tame/reject wildness/violence with the sincere spirit of a filial child (IHL Cat. #430) by the artist Kobayashi Toshimitsu (active 1876–1904), a student of Yoshitoshi's.
Most, if not all, of the twelve color prints Yoshitoshi designed for the textbooks were reprinted in 1888 and sold as individual sheets.
A Little About the Publisher
Source: Principle, Practice, and the Politics of Educational Reform in Meiji Japan, Mark Elwood Lincicome, University of Hawaii Press, 1995, p. 81-82.Tsuji Keiji, an alumnus of the Tokyo Normal School and the author of several textbooks, was intensely committed to the dissemination of developmental education. To that end, in 1882 he established his own publishing house, the Fukyūsha (fukyū means “disseminate”), which published numerous books incorporating the principles of developmental education.
Print Details
| IHL Catalog | #924 |
| Title | Wang Lan Harmony Between Siblings 王覽の悌 |
| Series | Nishikie Shūshindan 錦絵修身談 (Brocade Pictures for Moral Education; also seen translated as Instructive Stories in Color Prints and Color Prints of Stories for Moral Education) The print was created for Volume 2 (巻二) of the textbooks. |
| Artist | Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) |
| Signature |  |
| Seal | unreadable (as shown above), but likely 大蘇 Taiso in seal script |
| Date | 1882 |
| Publisher | 普及舎 辻敬之 Tsuji Keiji of Fukyūsha |
| Carver |  Enkatsu tō 円活刀 [full name Enkatsu Noguchi] |
| Impression | good |
| Colors | excellent |
| Condition | good - center fold from insertion in book |
| Genre | kyōiku nishikie |
| Miscellaneous | Keyes 454-5 |
| Format | horizontal aiban folded in half for insertion into textbook |
| H x W Paper | 8 13/16 x 10 9/16 in. (22.4 x 26.8 cm) |
| H x W Image | 8 3/16 x 10 1/16 in. (20.8 x 25.6 cm) |
| Collections This Print | Philadelphia Museum of Art 1989-47-323 |
| Reference Literature | Yoshitoshi, Masterpieces from the Ed Freis Collection, Chris Uhlenbeck and Amy Reigle Newland, Hotei Publishing, 2011, p. 155, no. 27. |
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