SOLD - Yoshiko Kawashima 1907 - 1948 Painting

Oil & mixed media on gesso board Yoshiko Kawashima was a Chinese princess, the 14th daughter of Shanqi, a Manchu prince of the Qing dynasty. She was raised in Japan and served as a spy for the Japanese Kwantung Army and puppet state of Manchukuo during the Second Sino-Japanese War. In 1911 the Xinhai Revolution overthrew the Qing dynasty and Yoshiko was given up for adoption at the age of eight to Kawashima Naniwa, a Japanese espionage agent and mercenary adventurer. She was raised and educated in the Kawashima family house in Matsumoto, Japan. As a teenage girl, she was raped by her stepfather’s father and later had an affair with her stepfather himself. She was sent to school in Tokyo for an education that included judo and fencing and then lived a bohemian lifestyle for some years in Tokyo with a series of rich lovers, both men and women. In 1927, Kawashima married Ganjuurjab, the son of Inner Mongolian Army general Jengjuurjab, but the marriage ended in divorce after only two years, and Kawashima moved to Shanghai. While there, she met Japanese military attaché and intelligence officer Tanaka Ryukichi, who utilised her contacts with the Manchu and Mongol nobility to expand his network. After Tanaka was recalled to Japan, Kawashima continued to serve as a spy. She undertook undercover missions in Manchuria, often disguised as a man, and was considered strikingly attractive. She was said to have a dominating personality, half tom-boy and half heroine, coupled with a passion for cross-dressing. Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, regarded Yoshiko as a member of the imperial family and welcomed her into his household. After Puyi became Emperor of Manchukuo, Kawashima continued to play various roles and, for a time, was the mistress of Tada Hayao, the chief military advisor to Puyi. She formed an independent counter insurgency cavalry force in 1932 made up of 3,000-5,000 former bandits to hunt down anti-Japanese guerilla bands during the Pacification of Manchukuo, and was hailed in the Japanese newspapers as the Joan of Arc of Manchukuo. However, as she became an increasingly well-known and popular figure in Manchukuo, making appearances on radio broadcasts and even issuing a record of her songs, her usefulness as an intelligence asset diminished. This created issues with the Kwantung Army, added to which her value as a propaganda symbol was compromised by her increasingly critical tone against the Japanese military’s policies, and she gradually faded from public sight. After the end of the war, on 11 November 1945, a news agency reported that “a long sought-for beauty in male costume was arrested in Beijing by Chinese counter-intelligence officers.” She was held in prison for two and a half years, and was the subject of a lengthy trial. One defence was to plead that as a naturalised Japanese citizen she was not a traitor but rather a prisoner of war. This was not recognised, however, and she was sentenced to death as a traitor. Her last request, for a private execution, was not granted. Instead she was publicly executed by a gunshot to the back of the head on March 25, 1948. Original work available through The Martin Tinney Gallery, Cardiff

Painting:Oil on Wood

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:27.5 W x 24 H x 2 D in

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