Gatōken Shunshi (画登軒春芝) (artist )
Onoe Tamizō II (尾上多見蔵) as Shirai Saijirō (白井才八郎 actually Gonpachi 権八) in Futatsumon kuruwa no nishiki-e (双紋郭錦絵: 'Brocade print of two crests in the pleasure quarters')
1823 – 1824
10.1 in x 14.9 in (Overall dimensions) Signed: Gatōken Shunshi ga (画登軒春芝画)
Artist's seal: Shi
Viewing Japanese Prints "The talented actor Onoe Tamizō II went for a [sic] training to Edo in 1820 and returned to Ōsaka in 1823, on the occasion of which several prints were published. He mainly acted at the middle theatres down to the early 1830's, but from that time he gradually became on of the leading actors in Ōsaka.
Shirai Saijirō, better known as Shirai Gompachi, is the lover of the courtesan Komurasaki. Several plays are based on the story of the two." This image is said to illustrate Tamizō in a performance of Futatsumon Kuruwa no Nishiki-e.
Source, quote and illustrated in black and white in: Ōsaka Kagami 大阪鏡 by Jan van Doesburg, Huys den Esch, 1985, p. 44, #30.
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The artist Shunshi often depicted the kabuki actor Onoe Tamizō II (1799-1886), a long-lived Osaka-based talent who excelled in quick-change roles and ghost plays. In this ōkubi-e [large head, bust-length portrait] close-up of the actor, his acting family crest appears as partial glimpses on the front robe and again on the sleeve at the bottom of the print. Many artists of the period produced prints featuring the actor, from Shunshi’s master Hokushū through Kuniyoshi (both in this exhibition) and other Utagawa school descendants. The actor was extremely versatile and appeared on stages in both Edo and Osaka in an enormous variety of roles. Being short, overweight (later quite fat, as documented in ukiyo-e prints of the latter 19th century) and known as a showman, he never achieved the high-ranking of some of his peers but enjoyed a career success few could equal. Here, Shunshi has evoked the portrait style of a decade earlier, placing the actor Tamizō II on a bold yellow background.
Onoe Tamizō II (二代目尾上多見蔵: 11/1820-1848; 1850-November, 1885) (actor)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
ōkubi-e (大首絵) (genre)
Shirai Gonpachi (白井権八) (role)