Utagawa Kuniyasu (歌川国安) (artist 1794 – 1832)
Group of actors in summer attire visiting a tea house overlooking the Benten Shrine at Shinobazu Pond in Ueno
ca 1825 – 1832
10 in x 15 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Kuniyasu ga (国安画)
Publisher: Fushimiya Zenroku
(Marks 080 - seal 13-005)
Censor's seal: kiwame
Google maps - Shinobazu Pond, Tokyo Shinobazu Pond
"...Shinobazu Pond in Ueno, is an area that was famous in Edo for its scenic beauty and that in the eighteenth century also happened to be a center of scholarly and literary publishing and print culture. The neighborhood was also known for its many established pharmacies and shops selling trend-setting handicraft items and for numerous "meet up" teahouses where clients could connect with prostitutes. [The two women in this print appear to be married by the way they are wearing their obi.] It was thus an area in which the cultured and the bawdy mingled..."
Quoted from: The Akita Ranga School and The Cultural Context in Edo Japan by Imahashi Riko, pp. 23-24.
The actors can be identified by their acting crests. The fellow in the back of the group, on the right, is probably Bandō Hikasaburō IV because he is wearing his mon the tsuru-no-maru (鶴の丸) or crane in a circle, the young boy actor in front of him is probably a member of the Ichimura clan who used the tachibana mon (橘) or mandarin orange as their crest, while the figure on the far left is probably Nakamura Utaemon III, identifiable by his tsuru-bishi (鶴菱) or two cranes in a lozenge-shaped motif.
On page 120 of A Kabuki Reader: History and Performance Susumu Matsudaira wrote: "One of Shikan I's crests was tsuru-bishi (a crane in a diamond-shaped background) and this, too, was used by his fans. The Nishimuraya family all had this crests on their purses, tobacco cases, furoshiki [a cloth used to carry small items...]. Nishimuraya's favorite hobby was indoor archery, and all the equipment for this was decorated with this crest; the feathers of the arrows were shikancha [a dull bitter red brown] in color. Hachiku from Nagahori put this crest not only on his small furniture but also his letter-paper. Merchants that came to Kiyu's shop to do business had to prepare a paper crest with the crane design and paste it over any wild orange crests that they had on them."
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To show the popularity of this particular spot, geographically, all you have to do is look at the other three prints in the Lyon Collection, by different artists, of basically this same perspective. The first one is by Shunchō from 1787, #1323. The second one is a diptych by Sadatora from the 1830s, #1082. The third one is by Toyokuni II also from the 1830s, #607.
Fushimiya Zenroku (伏見屋善六) (publisher)
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
beautiful woman picture (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)
landscape prints (fūkeiga 風景画) (genre)