Wakoku hyakujo 和国百女

FSC-GR-780.90.1-3

Commentary by Suzuki Jun

Posted June 2, 2017

Original unedited text in Japanese follows

In Wakoku hyakujo (One hundred women of Japan) Hishikawa Moronobu portrayed the customs and manners of contemporary women. This monochrome book was released in 1695, a year after Moronobu’s death. Even though the colophon in the third volume lists the illustrator as Gashi Hishikawa Moronobu 画師菱川師宣 (Artist Hishikawa Moronobu), some scholars question the attribution to him. The preface also states that “The bookseller Matsue Sakutan wished to present these pictures in a publication” (書林松氏朔旦、以其図欲于鏤版), which confirms Matsue as the original publisher. The preface states that “[I] drew pictures of one hundred women” (描百女図) but in fact there are only thirty-three figures.

The first volume deals with the various types of married women, starting with highest ranking court ladies and samurai wives, continuing with wives of merchants and farmers, and then wives from the townspeople class (chōnin). The second volume includes seamstresses, dyers, laundresses, weavers, cotton scutchers, cloth fullers, blind itinerant performers, sea-salt harvesters from Gyōtoku, and hemp spinners. The third volume shows women involved in other occupations and walks of life, including entertainers on pleasure boats, women in service to the court, dancers, chōnin wives, mistresses, prostitutes, women visiting temples, rice planters, female pilgrims to the Atago Shrine in Edo, and Buddhist nuns.

The text in the upper register of each double-page opening briefly describes the women depicted, with many ending in a moralistic statement, a waka or a haiku poem. This picture-book showcases Moronobu’s diverse views and compositional techniques; it appears to have been a popular publication.

書名和国百女

執筆者鈴木淳

菱川師宣の女性風俗絵本で、絵師署名「画師菱川師宣」。師宣没年の翌年の刊行で、在銘本であるが、師宣筆を疑う説もある。墨摺。見開き三十一図。序に「書林松氏朔旦、以其図欲于鏤版」（本屋の松会朔旦がその図を版にしたがった）とあるので、初板元も松会（松氏）と判明する。絵は見開き図で、上段に全体の四分の一ほどの余白を設け、絵に沿った内容のテキストが記される。序に「描百女図」（百女の図を描いた）とあるが、収めるのは三十三図に止まる。

上巻は官女、武家の奥方、商家の女房、町人の女房、農夫の女房などの種々の階層の嫁入りした成人女性、中巻は物師、かのこくゝし（紺屋染め）、せんたく、おりご（織子）、わた打ち、きぬた（砧打ち）、盲目、行徳の汐汲み女、苧（麻）績み、下巻は船遊びの女、宮仕えの女、踊りの女、町人の女房、めかけ女、遊女、寺参りの女、早乙女、愛宕参りの女、比丘尼など、様々な職業の女性の情態を描出。上欄の説明は、それぞれの女性の境遇を小話を交えて紹介しつつ、最後は教訓、和歌、発句などで閉めることが多い。師宣の多彩な見識と画技による絵本で、人気を博した。

Selected readings:

Louise Norton Brown, Block Printing & Book Illustration in Japan (London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd.: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1924), 48.

Matsudaira Susumu松平進, Moronobu Sukenobu ehon shoshi『師宣祐信絵本書誌』(Tokyo: Seishōdō Shoten, 1988).

Suzuki Jūzō鈴木重三, Hishikawa Moronobu ehon 『菱川師宣絵本』, vol. 5, Iwasaki bunko kichōbon sōkan『岩崎文庫貴重本叢刊』, ed. Tōyō Bunko東洋文庫and Nihon Kotenbungakkai 日本古典文学会. 6 vols. Tokyo: Kichōbon Kankōkai, 1974.

Kenji Toda, Descriptive Catalogue of the Japanese and Chinese Illustrated Books in the Ryerson Library of the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: 1931; repr., Mansfield Centre, CT: Martino Publishing, 2004), 110–11.

Copies in other collections:

Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

National Diet Library, Tokyo

Tōyō Bunko, Tokyo