Utagawa Kunisada/Toyokuni III (1786-1865) Ichikawa Danjūrō VII as Matsuomaru, from the play Sugawara denju tenarai kagami, 1831. Oban.
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This print is a very great and rare thing. It is one of three prints from a short series commemorating a performance of the very famous play Sugawara denju tenarai kagami. The story of this scene is how Matsuomaru remains loyal to his true lord, Kan Shojo.
The villain of the play has ordered the murder of Kan Shojo’s young son, Kan Shusai. He has commanded Matsuomaro to accompany the party of officers sent to capture and kill the boy because he was the only person who can identify him with certainty. Matsuomaru contrives to have his own son killed in place of Kan Shusai. His son is murdered off stage and the severed head is then brought on stage in a box and laid before him. He opens the box, gazes on his own son’s head, and says clearly that this Kan Shusai. Kunisada depicts Danjuro as Matsuomaru at this dramatic moment. We see the actor portraying Matsuomaru’s pain as he is caught between his personal feelings and his loyalty to his lord.
His inner struggle is expressed in the actor's pose: clenching his fist and jaw, and crossing his eyes in the mie. The hero must, unhesitatingly, maintain loyalty and duty to his lord no matter what the personal cost. This grim scene is regarded as one of the weightiest in all kabuki for male-role actors.
I am indebted to The Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge for the following information on this mysterious print. The title alludes to a poem written in the actor’s hand. Kabuki actors like Danjuro were every bit as popular as movie stars today… a poem like this would have been a great collector’s item at the time.
Above Danjuro’s head is a poem of his own composition printed from a block that reproduces his own cursive script. It is signed and sealed ‘the seventh generation Sansho’ (Sansho is the ‘poetry name’ used by bearers of the Danjuro stage name.) The poem with its dense word play and multiple levels of meaning would have teased and delighted Danjuro’s fans, many of whom would also have been amateur poets. Only a few of the puns and allusions can be hinted at here.
Migawari mo
kore de sando ya
Shimosa guri
Here I am, for the third time,
with a changed appearance,
Like a chestnut from Shimosa!
The place, Shimosa, in the last line of the poem is the name of the province in which the first actor to bear the Danjuro name was born in the seventeenth century. His successors made pilgrimages to his birthplace there to honour his memory.
The phrase Shimosa guri (‘Chestnuts from Shimosa’) asks the reader to compare the fuzzy-haired appearance of Danjuro as depicted here with a bristly chestnut from Shimosa. There is also a verbal pun in sando (‘third time’) and guri (‘chestnut’): Sando guri is a type of chestnut that bears fruit three times a year.
Sando (‘third time’) appears in the phrase ‘‘for a third time/with a changed appearance’. This refers to the three roles that Danjuro performed that season, all of which are named on the print.
This is a fabulous print, very rare and undoubtedly from Kunisada’s own hand. No other copies than this and the one in the Fitzwilliam are known. The use of Danjuro’s script and composition would have made this a very special edition. Colour is fine, impression also fine. Overall the condition is very good. There is a visible centrefold, the print is unbacked and there are no losses.
Published by Sanoya Kihe.
38 x 25.5 cm.
