Title
Yotsuya ghost story (Yotsuya kaidan), from the series New forms of thirty-six ghosts
1892
Artist
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Details
- Place where the work was made
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Japan
- Period
- Meiji period 1868 - 1912 → Japan
- Date
- 1892
- Media category
- Materials used
- woodblock print; ink and colour on paper
- Dimensions
- 36.5 x 24.5 cm
- Credit
- Yasuko Myer Bequest Fund 2019
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 5.2019.2
- Copyright
- Artist information
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Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
Ostensibly tranquil, this scene shows Oiwa feeding her infant. Shortly after, she was poisoned by her neighbour Oume who coveted Oiwa’s husband, Iemon. When the poison made Oiwa hideous, cruel Iemon could not stand to look at her and his behaviour drove Oiwa to suicide. A servant chastised Iemon for his abuse of Oiwa and Iemon murdered him. He nailed them both to a plank which he threw in the river. Iemon then married Oume, but when he lifted her wedding hood it was Oiwa’s face he saw. He then murdered his new bride and her father, who he mistook for the dead servant. He later drowned himself. Perhaps Japan’s most famous ghost story, the Yosuya ghost story premiered on the kabuki stage in 1825 and first appeared in cinema in 1912.
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Places
Where the work was made
Japan
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Exhibition history
Shown in 1 exhibition
Japan Supernatural, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 02 Nov 2019–08 Mar 2020