Print designer and book illustrator
Nabeta Gyokuei
鍋田玉英
Meiji print artist who redrew an old picture book of monsters in 1881.
On Picturepops™ cards · 2
The life
1847-unknownBorn Unknown (lived and worked in Tokyo)
Nabeta Gyokuei (鍋田玉英) was a Tokyo print artist of the Meiji era, born in 1847; the date of death is not known. A pupil of Toyohara (Yoshu) Chikanobu, Gyokuei first worked as Nobuharu, later also signed Yodo, and was active from about 1877 to 1902, making prints of places, customs and current events, such as a horse race at Ueno and the members of the new Imperial Diet. In 1881 Gyokuei redrew the pictures for Kaibutsu gahon (Picture Book of Monsters). The colophon says the pictures were first gathered by Rikan Mitsukata in 1802 and copied by Gyokuei; they belong to the same family of yokai that Toriyama Sekien made famous. Picturepops cards use the belly-drumming tanuki and the dancing nekomata cats from this book.