Kuniyoshi 国芳: Benevolent Beauty Releasing Captive Turtles

Artist: Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861)Title: Benevolence (Jin)  Series: Mirror of Feminine Virtue for a Thousand Ages  貞操千代の鏡 (Teisô chiyo no kagami)   Date: 1842-43 A young beauty approaches a stand of captive snakes and turtles. She clearly is about to save their lives by paying for their release back into the wild. This is a method of saving lives that is practiced in the Buddhist tradition; this method is believed to be a positive action (karma) that brings great benefit, especially for the benevolent benefactor. The young woman wears a kimono decorated with leaf patterns, and next to her is a boy who carries her umbrella. The boy is actually her attendant, and he has extended his hand holding coins belonging to the woman towards an unseen vendor.  In this series of portraits of beautiful women (bijin), the women are likened to the five cardinal virtues of Confucius. The character for the virtue is written large (”jin”) in the cartouche at top left. In Hiroshige’s Famous Views of Ed