Tanikaze Kajinosuke (c. mid-1780s): Art, History and Details

Tanikaze Kajinosuke (c. mid-1780s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Katsukawa Shunshō (Japanese, 1726–1792).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Tanikaze Kajinosuke (1750–1795) was an extraordinary champion sumo wrestler who hailed from what is now Sendai, a city in northern Japan. Even at his death from influenza at age 44, he was dominating the ring and was one of the first to be given sumo’s highest rank, yokozuna (横綱), during his lifetime. In this print, Katsukawa Shunshō showed him as he may have appeared strolling the avenue, spied by his fans.

Object facts

• Title: Tanikaze Kajinosuke
• Date: c. mid-1780s
• Creator attribution: Katsukawa Shunshō (Japanese, 1726–1792)
• Culture: Japan, Edo period (1615–1868)
• Type: Print
• Technique: color woodblock print
• Dimensions: Sheet: 37.8 x 17.6 cm (14 7/8 x 6 15/16 in.)
• Collection: Japanese Art
• Department: Japanese Art
• Accession number: 1930.209

Collection credit

Bequest of Edward L. Whittemore

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hollis, Howard C. “The Edward Loder Whittemore Collection of Japanese Prints.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 17, no. 4 (April 1930): 64–66.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.