Shūshō (集升) (artist 1840s)
Nakamura Shikan III as Ume no Yoshibei (梅ノ由衛) and Kataoka Gadō II as the decchi (apprentice - でっち) Chōkichi (長吉) in The Mirror of Loyalty and Filial Piety (Chūkō kagami - 忠孝鏡)
1847
10.25 in x 7.5 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Shūshō (集升)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - an 1861 Toyokuni III print with an actor as the decchi Chōkichi
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - an 1865 Yoshitaki diptych with these two characters
Hankyu Culture Foundation
Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie This possibly commemorates a performance from the play Suda no haru geiko katagi (隅田春妓女容性), originally written by Namiki Gohei, at an unidentified theater in Osaka or it could be a a mitate or an image of a performance that never actually took place.
Although Yoshibei can be identified by the name written in Japanese at the top of the print in the center, he is also wearing a robe with a flying cranes on it. Normally the flying birds are blackbirds, but here it is somewhat different for whatever reason.
A very rare design and most unusual format (chūban yoko okubi-e) by a pupil of Sadamasu (possibly using a pseudonym in the early days following the Tenpō Reforms ban on actor prints).
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Ellis Tinios wrote in a issue of Andon about a closely related play with these two characters: "Yoshibei kills Chōkichi in order to obtain a sum of money, not knowing that by doing so he has killed the younger brother of the woman he loves."
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Illustrated in Ikeda Bunko, Kamigata Yakusha-e Shusei (Collected Kamigata Actor Prints) Volume 3, Ikeda Bunko Library, Osaka 2001, no. 237.
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
Nakamura Shikan III (三代目中村芝翫 - from 1/1836 to 11/2/1847) (actor)
Kataoka Gadō II (二代目片岡我童: from 1837 to 12/1856) (actor)
Ume no Yoshibei (梅の由兵へ) (role)
ōkubi-e (大首絵) (genre)
Namiki Gohei (初代並木五瓶) (kabuki)
mitate-e (見立て絵) (author)