  Hasegawa Munehiro (長谷川宗廣 act. c. 1848–1863) was a pupil of Hasegawa Sadanobu I (一代 長谷川貞信). His first art name (known as a geimei, 芸名) appears to have been "Munehiro" (宗廣) and his later art name was Kitagawa Toyohide II (二代 北川豊秀), which is documented on a chûban-format tetraptych from 1862 signed Munehiro kaimei Kitagawa Toyohide ("Munehiro changing [his] name to Kitagawa Toyohide [II]": 宗廣改名北川豊秀). The tetraptych was issued for the play Keisei Soga Kamakura daijin (けいせい曽我鎌倉鏶), and while the far right sheet bears the signature cited above, the remaining three sheets were signed with the new name, Toyohide (豊秀).
Munehiro, an actor-print (yakusha-e: 役者絵) portrait artist, worked primarily in two formats: chûban format (中判 approx. 250 x 180 mm) and mameban ("bean prints" 豆判, approx. 130 x 100 mm down to 100 x 65 mm or smaller). At least one ôban print (大判 approx. 370 x 280 mm) is known, so he likely designed a few more of those as well.
An exceedingly rare example from among Munehiro's chûban designs is shown on the left. It portrays Ichikawa Gyokuen (市川玉猿) as Watônai (わ都内) in Kokusenya kassen (Battles of Kokusenya: 國性爺合戦), staged at the Kado Theater, Osaka in 11/1855. For more about this actor and print, see the link at the end of this text.
Hasegawa Munehiro's Names
Surname:
Hasegawa (長谷川) see signature at top right with yellow background
Kitagawa (北川)
used with the geimei Toyohide circa 1862-1863
Art Names (geimei):
Munehiro (宗廣) used circa 1848-1862; see signature above with gray background
Toyohide II (二代 豊秀) used circa 1862-1863
Pupils of Hasegawa Munehiro
There are no documented pupils of Munehiro.
For more information about Hasegawa Munehiro, see John Fiorillo's web page:
https://viewingjapaneseprints.net/texts/ukiyoe/munehiro.html.
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