Kitagawa Utamaro (1753?–1806)

This design is from a set comprising eleven prints, each with an inset cartouche containing a scene from one of the eleven acts of the famous drama Treasury of the Loyal Retainers (Chushingura), above the main design which is an everyday scene with elements in common. On this print, the cartouche shows the scene of the merchant Amakawaya Gihei on top of a long storage box, defying the officers of the law surrounding him. The main picture shows a drunken man causing a to-do in an oil-seller's shop. He is stripped to his undergarments, and does not want to be moved from the top of the straw sake keg he is seated upon. It is presumed that the oil-seller is refusing to serve him.1

1. See Shugo Asano and Timothy Clark, The Passionate Art of Kitagawa Utamaro, (London, 1995), cat. 385

For another impression in the collections of the British Museum, accession number 1906,1220,0.351, go to https://www.britishmuseum.org/research