Jitsukawa Enzaburō I [実川延三郎] as the monkey trainer Yojirō [与次郎] in the play <i>Sarumawashi Kadodeno Hitofushi</i> [猿廻し門途の一節]

Torii Kiyosada (artist 1844 – 1901)

Jitsukawa Enzaburō I [実川延三郎] as the monkey trainer Yojirō [与次郎] in the play Sarumawashi Kadodeno Hitofushi [猿廻し門途の一節]

Print


04/1848
7.5 in x 10 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Kiyosada (清貞)
Seal: o-no-Zo
Printer: Edo Jinshō (江戸甚摺)
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Waseda University
The National Gallery, Prague
Smart Museum of Art, the University of Chicago - this link requires that you search through an album to find this print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art The monkey's name is Toku and is like a child to Yojirō.

This print commemorates a performance of the play Sarumawashi Kadodeno Hitofushi performed at the Naka Theater in 3/1848.

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Sarumawashi Kadodeno Hitofushi is one of the plays related to the love affair of Oshun and Denbei. The original theme was produced for the puppet theater by Chikamatsu Tokusō (近松德三 - 1751-1810). This Chikamatsu was a disciple of the Chikamatsu Hanji (近松判二 - 1725-1783) who was the son of a man who had been a friend of the great Chikamatsu Monzaemon (近松門左衛門 - 1653-1724).

"Izutsuya Denbei is trying to retrieve a scroll painting of a hawk belonging to someone in whose debt he stands, but the painting is in the hands of the Kameyama samurai Yokōfūchi Kanzaemon, who also desires Denbei's courtesan mistress Oshun. Denbei gets the scroll back with the help of Takiguchi Sanchi, the brother of his fiancée, Omitsu. However, while Denbei is fighting with Kanzaemon at Shijōgawa in Kyoto, the scroll tears. After killing the samurai, he takes refuge with Oshun at the home of her brother, Yojirō, a monkey handler, in Horikawa. Yojirō divines their intentions to kill themselves and uses his monkey to advise them to flee. Before they can die in Seigoin Forest, loved ones arrive to prevent their demise. The torn scroll proves to be a forgery, and all ends in a happy grand finale."

Quoted from: New Kabuki Encyclopedia: A Revised Adaptation of Kabuki Jiten by Samuel L. Leiter, pp. 554-555.

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Illustrated:

1) in color in 'An Album of Osaka Actor Prints' by Hendrick Lühl in Andon 98, December 2014, 58.

2) in a small, black and white reproduction in Osaka-Holzschnitte by Hendrick Lühl, 1982, p. 130.
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Jitsukawa Enzaburō I (初代実川延三郎: from 1/1833 to 1/1865) (actor)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
Yojirō (与次郎) the monkey trainer (role)