Utagawa Kunisada
Monk Mongaku Praying Penance Under the Great Waterfall (1851)
Height 35cm x Width 73cm
media
- Wood
mark
Estimate
SGD 3,000 - 4,700
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Utagawa Kunisada
Japan
1786 – 1865
Utagawa Kunisada was one of the most prolific and celebrated masters of ukiyo-e woodblock prints during the Edo period. He was born in Edo (now Tokyo) to a well-off family and apprenticed under Toyokuni I around 1800 and adopted the name Kunisada in the Utagawa tradition. Financially secure from his family’s ferry business, Kunisada could devote himself fully to art, producing an immense and varied body of work that included portraits of beautiful women (bijin-ga), Kabuki actors, warriors, legends, and literary scenes such as The Tale of Genji.
By the 1820s, Kunisada had become one of Japan’s most successful printmakers, admired for his bold color, refined composition, and dramatic style. He later took the name Toyokuni III and led the Utagawa School for nearly four decades, mentoring artists such as Kunichika and Kunisada II. His collaborations with Hiroshige, notably the “Two-Brush Tokaido,” and his late series such as A Contest of Magic Scenes by Toyokuni (1861–64), reflect both innovation and technical mastery.