Kō Musashi-no-kami Moronao

This drawing was likely meant to be part of a series of half-length portraits of famous men. The several that survive are all the same size and contained within a frame; they all carry the same signature. Yet Yoshitoshi either was not able to find a publisher to take on this project, or the publisher he did work with decided against a production, since no published prints of this series are known. This portrait shows Kō Moronao (d. 1351), who was deputy to the first shogun of the Ashikaga, Takauji (1305–1358), and in that role had a reputation of being a villain.