![Nakamura Utaemon IV [中村歌右衛門] as Ishitome Busuke (石留武助) from the play <i>Keisei Homare no sukedachi</i> or <i>A Courtesan: Honor with Two Swords</i> [けいせい誉両刀]](https://woodblockprints.org/media/lyon_collection/images/1/5/99157_ca_object_representations_media_1518_large.jpg)
Utagawa Hirosada (歌川広貞: 1810-1864) (artist early 1810s - early 1860s)
Nakamura Utaemon IV [中村歌右衛門] as Ishitome Busuke (石留武助) from the play Keisei Homare no sukedachi or A Courtesan: Honor with Two Swords [けいせい誉両刀]
01/1850
6.75 in x 9.625 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Unsigned
Waseda University
Lyon Collection - a related print by Yoshitake - click on the added jpeg to see the connection The figure of Ishitome Busuke also appeared earlier in the Bunraku play The Vendetta in Iga (Iga-goe dōchū sugoroku - 伊賀越道中双六).
Osaka Prints admitted that they could not find information about this particular play, i.e., Keisei Homare no sukedachi but did agree that it was an off-shoot of the vendetta story-line mentioned above. They wrote: "It appears to be an adaptation of a real life vendetta in 1634 at Iga Ueno when Watanabe Kazuma slayed Kawai Matagorô, the murderer of his father, Watanabe Yukie, killed four years earlier. Kazuma was aided by his brother-in-law, the master swordsman Araki Mataemon."
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The name Ishitome Busuke is sometimes transliterated as Ishidome Busuke.
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)