Japan: An ukiyo-e triptych depicting the issuing of the Meiji Constitution in 1889, by Adachi Ginko (1853-1908), 1889

Adachi Ginko (1853-1908) was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist active during the 19th century. Born as Adachi Heishichi in 1853, he studied under the painter Goseda Horyu and began designing woodblock prints as early as 1870, though his earliest surviving prints date to 1873.

He was very active as a member of the Utagawa school and worked in different genres, from portraits to landscapes, illustrations, satirical works and triptychs of contemporary events. His most successful work were a series of triptychs in the late 1880s called the 'Pictorial Outline of Japanese History'.

Ginko was arrested and jailed in 1889 for his caricatures of the Meiji Emperor during the controversial era of the Meiji Constitution decree. He was imprisoned for a year, but continued to produce prints after his release, with his last known work dating to 1908, after which he disappears from any public record.

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Pictures From History