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Your galleryA Battle in Mid-Stream
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Start at the raised fan and the rider’s glaring face, then drop to the second warrior’s upturned face among the curling waves.
Two armored warriors grapple in a river under flowering branches. One, red-faced, rides a black horse and raises a war fan; the other twists up out of the waves below. Kiyonobu printed the design in black about 1705 to 1710, and it was colored by hand, mainly with tan, a red made from red lead that was popular before color printing arrived.
Hand-colored woodblock print; ōban, tan-e · 54.1 × 28.5 cm · Art Institute of Chicago
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Details and source
- Museum title
- A Battle in Mid-Stream
- Artist
- Torii Kiyonobu I Japanese, 1664–1729
- Date
- c. 1705-10
- Medium
- Hand-colored woodblock print; ōban, tan-e
- Dimensions
- 54.1 × 28.5 cm (21 1/4 × 11 1/4 in.); Mat: 95.3 × 45.8 cm (37 1/2 × 18 in.)
- Credit line
- Clarence Buckingham Collection
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Art Institute of Chicago
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.