Ghosts, wrestlers and rain
Utagawa Kuniyoshi
Woodblock prints from Edo around the middle of the nineteenth century, many of them three sheets wide. Two sumo wrestlers locked together while a judge and the referee look on, the ghosts of the Taira rising from the sea around a ship at Daimotsu Bay, a crowd of fighters on the steep roof of the Hōryūkaku from the tale of eight dogs, women on a pleasure boat under the autumn moon, and grey rain over the river at Ochanomizu.
As a puzzle
Busy, bold and wide. The wrestlers’ big pale bodies, the red roof of the pleasure boat and the white sail at Daimotsu Bay give you clear places to start, and the striped robes hold together well. The crowd on the Hōryūkaku roof is slow, the blue waves repeat, and Ochanomizu is nearly all grey rain, so keep that one moderate. The rest take a high count well.
A good size here: 60–300 pieces.
Also filed under Ukiyo-e
Subjects here: Rivers and LakesLandscapesThe SeaNight
7 pictures, pick one to build
Water Scene 1840 
Sumo Wrestlers Kagamiiwa Hamanosuke and Koyanagi Tsunekichi, with Judge Sakaigawa Namiemon and Referee Shikimori Kiichirō 1847–52 (Kōka 4–Kaei 5) 
Ghosts of the Taira at Daimotsu Bay 1843–47 
Autumn, from the series Women’s Pleasures of the Four Seasons ca. 1844–46 
The Hōryūkaku, from Hakkenden (Tale of eight dogs) 1840 
Ochanomizu in the Rain mid-19th century 
Women Near a River ca. 1850