Utagawa Yoshitaki (1841 - 1899) Mimasu Inemaru in an unknown role, 1860. Deluxe Chuban.
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Osaka was the centre for some of the most extraordinary achievements of multi-colour woodblock printing anywhere in the world. Setting aside other matters, the mastery of colour and texture alone is outstanding. The brevity, subtlety and confidence, quite remarkable. Toshidama Gallery has always been a proponent of the Osaka School of artists for these reasons, but until recently, there was a distinct prejudice against these designs… some sense of them being provincial, when in fact the opposite is true.
The Osaka artists produced conventional, oban sized prints (25cm x 38cm) in the Edo manner until the commencement of the moral reforms — the Tenpo Reforms — in the mid 1840’s. The shift to the smaller format was presumably to make prints easier to conceal and trade in. There are aesthetic reasons which also contributed to the changed style. The use of the smaller format slightly predates the worst of the reforms and the artist Sadamasu was already producing deluxe, sophisticated chuban prints by 1840. Theatre prints were often produced by poetry coteries or fan clubs of the rich kabuki theatre tradition, much like in Renaissance London in the early modern period. The prints were very often commissioned in small, expensive editions such as this exquisite jewel by Yoshitaki. Let’s not forget that the reforms prohibited the depiction of actors and were especially harsh in Osaka. The game of cat and mouse was essentially about producing actor prints, but disguised as portraits or historical scenes in order to baffle the censor.
This print by Yoshitaki is especially successful. The paper is very thick, deluxe hoshu paper. The printing is sparse, the palette limited, and the patterning is equally spare… but what use of colour! Detail and care is everywhere. The light blue in-line for example, that follows the grey drawing of the headdress; the barely visible pattern in the delicious orange of the shawl. and the tremendous graphic activity in the lower right where there is that fantastic collision of fingers and fan struts. The fan itself is printed in two tones of ink with a mica-laden varnish laid over, which is presumably to imply that this is a metal fighting fan (tessen).
The subject is the Osaka actor, Mimasu Inemaru I, who was born in 1834. There are not very many prints of him; one of the most well known is an extraordinary triptych by the Osaka artist, Hirosada, which portrays the actor in the role of Otowa. I think there’s every chance that this print is of the same role. Mimasu started his career in 1840, but was never in the first class of actors, staying in the Osaka region rather than venturing to Edo. Crucially, he revived the Omiwa role in the third month of 1858 but died a month later. I’m persuaded that the Yoshitaki print perhaps commemorates this role, since the print must be from within a year or two of the performance itself. Note how the actor’s teeth have been blackened, a sign of status among married, Japanese women of the Edo period.
Tragic Otowa sells herself into prostitution to pay for her sumo wrestler husband's debts. The play from which this is derived is Sekitori Sen Ryo Nobori. The plot involves two sumo patrons trying to raise money to rescue another woman from prostitution. Otowa’s husband, Iwagawa Jirokichi agrees to throw the bout but at the expense of his career… hence Otowa’s intervention. There is a little more information on this print in the Lyon Collection of Japanese Prints.
A deluxe chuban print with deep rich embossing into luxury, hoshu paper. The print is enriched with mica varnishes and bronze metallic powders. The impression is crisp and outstanding, colour and condition are pristine.
25cm x 18cm.
