Posted by Noel Chiappa (98.166.150.196) on September 01, 2010 at 19:22:09:
In Reply to: Empress Jingu and Hiroshige posted by Tor Tolstrup on September 01, 2010 at 15:28:21:
"I have been searching the net for information about historical and mythical prints of Hiroshige I who, I was told, is the master behind this triptych but found nothing."
It does seem likely to be Hiroshige's signature, but the picture is pretty small so I can't be positive about that.
Hiroshige did do some prints on historical subjects, as you can see here:
http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/historical_subjects/historical_subjects.htm
(although that page doesn't seem to be complete; I don't see the 'The Life of Yoshitsune' series listed there).
That site also contains Basil Stewart's book, "A Guide to Japanese Prints and Their Subject Matter":
http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/stewart/stewart.htm
I took a quick look through Part V ("Historical Subjects, Legends and Stories"), but didn't see this print - although Hiroshige did at least one other triptych on a historical theme ("Battle of Kawanakajima"):
http://www.hiroshige.org.uk/hiroshige/triptychs/triptychs.htm
This particular print does not seem to be shown on that site, though.
The site also contains the completely "Catalogue of the [Hiroshige] Memorial Exhibition", by Watanabe, which has almost all of Hiroshige's prints, but it doesn't seem to be there either (at least, a search for Jingu didn't turn it up, although perhaps it was spelled differently).
Hope some of this is useful...
Noel