Antique Japanese Woodblock print. Tiger with bird. Hand Signed. Maruyama Okyo’s ?

Antique Japanese Woodblock print. Tiger with bird. Hand Signed. Maruyama Okyo’s ?

Size approximately 32 x 43 cm

Size with frame 46 x 58 cm

Tiger in Japan

Though they have never lived in the wild anywhere within the Japanese archipelago, the Japanese have long known about the  tiger, so highly esteemed, and feared, on the continent , from pictures, stories AND skins, which were brought over by emissaries, monks, traders and soldiers.

The Japanese word for tiger, tora, is believed to be of southern Chinese origin, deriving from the word taira.

The first appearance of the tiger in ( extant) Japanese texts is in the Nihon Shoki ( 720, the second oldest Japanese text after the Kojiki). There, we can find the account of  Kashiwade no Omihasui, who in the 6th year of the reign of the Emperor Kinmei ( 欽明天皇)-545 AD, was sent to the Kingdom of Paekche ( Kudara in Japanese), on the Korean Peninsula, as an ambassador. According to the story, Kashiwade took his wife and child with him. When they arrived on the shores of the peninsula, the sun had set, and in the darkness the child disappeared,  grabbed by a tiger. The Japanese ambassador pursued the animal, and eventually slew it with his sword. He later brought the skin back with him to Japan.