Jukōdō Yoshikuni (寿好堂よし国) (artist )
Nakamura Utaemon III (中村歌右衛門) as a black man or kuronbō (黒んばう) in Western clothes carrying coral - Dance of the 9 Changes (Kokonobake no uchi - 九変化ノ内) - from the play Yosete Aratani Kokonobake (日本新玉九尾化)
01/1825
10 in x 14.75 in (Overall dimensions) woodblock print
Signed: Jukōdō Yoshikuni ga
寿好堂よし国画
Very faint remnants of the Yoshi seal
Publisher: Honya Seishichi (Marks 123 - seal 25-527)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - edition with artist's Yoshi seal
Lyon Collection - Toyokuni I of Nakamura Shika I in the same role in 1819
Tokyo Metropolitan Library -1819 Kunisada print of the same role
Hankyu Culture Foundation - edition with artist's Yoshi seal
Lyon Collection - another print from this series
Royal Museums of Art and History, Belgium (via Cultural Japan) - also with the Yoshi seal There are at least two different editions of this print. We know this because the linked examples above to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Royal Museums in Brussels both carry the artist's personal seal in red below his signature. They also display highly patterned trousers while those on the actor in the print in the Lyon Collection are plain.
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There are two prints in the Lyon Collection of the same man acting under different stage names, several years apart, as the black man or kuronbō - first as Shikan I and later as Utamaro III. The kuronbō was only one stage persona is a set of quick change figures. For the other example go to #124.
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One can only speculate how Utaemon was received by the audience when he appeared as a South Seas native carrying a large piece of coral. Perhaps it was somewhat like the late 19th to early 20th century American crowds when performers in black face appeared in minstrel shows. A raucous time was had by all.
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Kuronbō (黒ん坊) is generally used as a denigrating terms. At best it can describe 'darkies', but at its most vulgar it is tantamount to using the 'n' word in the United States. While the Japanese already held a dim view of dark skinned people their prejudices were reinforced by the biases of the Dutch who visited Nagasaki. In fact, while Dutch men could visited the prostitutes of that port, sexual contact with kuronbō was discouraged.
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The Japanese and their attitudes toward blacks
As with all social issues, there are a multitude of opinions - often contradictory - that run through a society. Sometimes they are explicit and sometimes they are implicit. This is particularly true of the Japanese attitudes toward dark skinned people. For instance, Manami Matsuoka in her article 'Unveiling Race and Japanese Identity Through Kokusai Kekkon' from 2021 discusses the persistence of bigotry that runs through the culture, vis a vis, black men. In Gary P. Leupp's article from 1995, 'Images of black people in late mediaeval and early modern Japan 1543–1900', he said: "Thus black Africans, and other peoples with whom they were commonly conflated, were alternately honored, tolerated, and disparaged by the Japanese..." Leupp pointed out that Japanese attitudes toward Africans were often muddled by three factors: 1) the Japanese didn't participate in any way in the slave trade in any way; 2) black men who were brought to Japan were often viewed as underlings or even the slaves of white men; and 3) the dark nature of the Africans flesh tones were often associated with the skin color of many Asian Indians/Buddhists and those fo South Sea Islanders.
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The inscription read: 黒んぼう 中村歌右衛門 九変化ノ内 黒くともよこれめはなし春の海 芝翫
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Illustrated in Ikeda Bunko, Kamigata yakusha-e shūsei Collected Kamigata Actor Prints, vol. 1, Osaka, 1998, no. 364.
There is one other print from this series of 9 in the Lyon Collection. It represents Nakamura Utaemon III as the Tamamo no Mae.
The text on the left side reads: 黒くともよこれめはなし春の海 芝翫
There is another print from this series in Lyon Collection. See the link above.
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
Nakamura Utaemon III (三代目中村歌右衛門) (actor)
Honya Seishichi (本屋清七) (publisher)