Utagawa Toyokuni I (1769-1825) Actors in the Drama Onna Hachinoki, 1810’s. Oban Diptych.
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Toyokuni is perhaps most associated with actor prints, a genre that he helped create and develop into a massive industry in nineteenth century Japan. Toyokuni responded to the growing public obsession with kabuki actors and the bulk of his output after 1810 (often criticised these days) is of stars of the kabuki stage.
His earlier work was in the tradition of the eighteenth century ukiyo artists such as Utamaro, later synthesising Utamaro’s mature style with that of his teacher Toyoharu and others to produce a mature style of his own. Toyokuni I was the co-founder of the Utagawa School of artists whose pupils included Kunisada (Toyokuni III), Kuniyoshi and Hiroshige - the three most famous ukiyo-e artists of the century - among dozens of other pupils and adherents, making Toyokuni perhaps the most influential ukiyo-e artist of all time.
This is an outstandingly well preserved diptych in Toyokuni’s mature style. It shows two kabuki actors, in a scene from one of the various hachinoki mono… plays about bonsai or potted trees. A King, Tokiyori, travels the winter landscape in disguise and calls at the house of a poor samurai who has lost everything except his three treasured bonsai trees. Nevertheless and not knowing the king's identity, he chops up the trees to make a fire for his guest and promises his loyalty to the king in time of crisis. Later when the king calls for soldiers the old samurai turns up and the king rewards him with three provinces - one for each of his trees.
The original versions of these plays in the puppet theatre featured women in the role of the old samurai, later the female role changed into a role for the samurai, Genzaemon's wife.
This is a fine diptych. Colour. impression and condition are fine. The print is unbacked and the two sheets are unjoined.
51 x 36 cm.
