Utagawa Kunisada/Toyokuni III (1786-1865) Scene from the Play Umeyanagi Sakigakezoshi, 1854. Vertical Oban Diptych.
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This beautiful design - an unusual vertical diptych - is a scene from a play which appears to be lost for ever. There is, as far as I can see, one other print of the subject, also by Kunisada which exists from the same year. The whole thing is an enigma and I am not the only person who has attempted to find out the story of the play Umeyanagi Sakigakezoshi. The Lavenberg Collection of Japanese Prints has a triptych of the performance but they have also drawn a blank.
What can we divine from the tiny clues? (if anyone can suggest something I’d be very grateful!)… well, the play title roughly translates to "Plum, Willow, Two Papers". One of the characters, Magaki Heikuro appears in a print by Ogata Gekko: The Horsemanship of Magaki Heikurô at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Presumably from the description, "At the Atago Shrine in 1634, Heikurô brought the shogun a branch of flowering plum from the top of the hill where the shrine stood, riding his horse up and then down the steep stone steps," he constitutes the plum element!
The print is a superb and lively composition of fighting, tumbling figures. The lower panel of irises by a lake derives from Hiroshige’s famous print, Horikiri Iris Garden from 100 Views of Edo. The unusual tiered composition shows an upper balcony - of a temple? - with two fighting figures with the lower sheet containing the falling figure… dropping.
The active figure in the upper sheet was played by the tragic figure of Ichikawa Danjuro VIII. On August 8, 1854, about five months after this print was issued, Ichikawa Danjūrō VIII committed suicide in Osaka by slashing his wrists. The actor in the lower sheet is Fukusuke Nakamu as Yazanpei Shimobe and in the upper, Ichikawa Danjuro plays Yokosone Heitaro and Danjo Tokitsura plays Hataya Shichiemon.
A very brilliant design with fresh colour and a fine impression, two oban sheets in fine condition… no issues.
Publisher: Kagaya Kichiemon.
24.5 x 71 cm.
