Utagawa Kunisada/Toyokuni III (1786-1865) Actors at the Fifty-three Stations of the Tokaido Road #50 (Minakuchi): Ichikawa Kodanji IV as Agogo no Heiji, 1852. Oban.
Click here for a full-size image.
One of the outstanding prints from a groundbreaking and hugely successful series pairing actor roles with the stations of the Tokaido Road. Print artists during the mid-century were plagued by legislation forbidding the naming and depiction of actors. Artists such as Kunisada who made their living from the theatre looked for increasingly complicated work-arounds… producing a landscape series with unnamed figures was one such strategy. Kunisada was apparently inspired by the actor Onoe Kikugoro III who walked the route, performing ad hoc dramas at different stations along the way. Kunisada used landscape prints from Hiroshige’s Hoeido edition of 1831 as the backdrops, a practice quite common at the time. In front of these borrowed scenes he depicted living and dead actors in scenes from plays that sometimes relate to the landscape or station depicted in the background. The series was an instant success: songs comparing Kunisada to great culinary delicacies and calling him the "Flower of Edo" were composed in his honour. Other series followed, notably one on the same theme set against Kisokaido Road backgrounds.
The proliferation of these images has meant that the genius of the designs, the conception and indeed the tremendous vitality of the execution is sometimes overlooked. This is a great woodblock print, over 150 years old and in very good condition. It depicts the kabuki actor, Ichikawa Kodanji IV, as in the previous print but this time in the role of Agogo no Heiji, a fisherman from the play, Akogi. Heiji's mother has been ill for a long time. The doctor tells him the only way to cure her is to catch a rare fish called a yagara, which can only be found in Akogi Bay. Fishing there is prohibited because it is a preserve of the Ise Grand Shrine. Nevertheless, Heiji casts his net into the bay, but instead of a yagara he brings up a precious sword. At that moment Heiji is discovered by another poacher, Jirozo, who beats wooden clappers to sound the alarm on the discovery of a poacher.
In the ensuing struggle, Heiji manages to escape but his straw raincoat and sedge hat remain in the hands of Jirozo. Before long the local magistrate comes to Heiji's house to arrest him, but when Heiji offers to surrender himself, Jirozo intervenes, stating that it was he who was the offender. As evidence he shows the sedge hat bearing two Chinese characters hei and ji, saying that they do not represent Heiji's name but are the initials of Jirozo's family name, 'Hiragawa', (the character for hira can also be read as hei and his given name is 'Jirozō'. The magistrate accepts this self-sacrificing interpretation, clearing the way for Heiji to return the imperial sword to his former master, General Tamura, in Kyoto.
Kunisada shows Heiji in a stricken mood; in his left hand he holds the precious sword, wrapped in a scarlet cloth. In his right he is holding the incriminating sedge cap and cape, filling the foreground space. Behind him, the river is visible through a heavy rain shower.
Colour and impression are very good. The print is trimmed with small loss to the left-hand margin. Previous album crease to the left edge. Unbacked.
Published by Izutsuya Shokichi.
35 x 24 cm.
