Ryūsai Shigeharu (柳斎重春) (artist 1802 – 1852)
Onoe Tamizō II (尾上多見蔵) as Rokusaburō (六三郎) in Umemoyo Ukina No Irozome
08/1832
9.5 in x 14.375 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Ryūsai Shigeharu ga
柳斎重春画
Publisher: Tenmaya Kihei
(Marks 536 - seal 26-155)
Printer/Carver: 摺師・彫師 ホリ定、スリ直
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Hankyu Culture Foundation This print commemorates at performance at the Wakadayū Theater in Osaka in the 8th month of 1832. Osakaprints.com gives a good synopsis of this play and scene:
"The play was an adaptation of one of the most notorious double suicide stories (shinjû-mono), this one involving the carpenter Rokusaburô and the courtesan Osono, inspired by an actual event in 1749. (The Osaka citizenry was shocked by yet another death on the same day, when a prostitute was executed for murdering Osono's brother.)
The popular theatrical retelling also involves the theft of a precious scroll painting of a carp (koi). When Rokusaburô tracks down the thieves and wrestles the scroll away from them, the carp comes to life and escapes. Shigeharu's print shows him trying to capture the carp, a scene called koi no tsukamimono ("catching hold of the carp"). The play was performed in the summer, and real water was used on the stage (called mizuiri or "in the water")."
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Illustrated in Ikeda Bunko, Kamigata yakusha-e shūsei (Collected Kamigata Actor Prints), vol. 2, Ikeda Bunko Library, Osaka, 1998, no. 163.
Tenmaya Kihei (天満屋喜兵衛) (publisher)
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
Onoe Tamizō II (二代目尾上多見蔵: 11/1820-1848; 1850-November, 1885) (actor)