Nakamura Utaemon III (中村歌右衛門) as Ishikawa Goemon (石川五右衛門) on the right and Arashi Rikan II (嵐璃寛) as Omi no Funauri Gengorō (近江ノ鮒売源五郎) from the play <i>Keisei Setsugekka</i> [けいせい雪月花]
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Ryūsai Shigeharu (柳斎重春) (artist 1802 – 1852)
Utagawa Kunihiro (歌川国広) (artist )

Nakamura Utaemon III (中村歌右衛門) as Ishikawa Goemon (石川五右衛門) on the right and Arashi Rikan II (嵐璃寛) as Omi no Funauri Gengorō (近江ノ鮒売源五郎) from the play Keisei Setsugekka [けいせい雪月花]

Print

01/1830
20 in x 14 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese color woodblock print
Signed (right): Gyokuryūtei Shigeharu ga
玉柳亭重春画
Signed (left): Utagawa Kunihiro ga
歌川国広画
Publisher: Tenmaya Kihei
(Marks 536 - seal 21-193)
Waseda University - left panel
Waseda University - right panel
Japan Arts Council
Hankyu Culture Foundation - right panel
Hankyu Culture Foundation - left panel
Museum of Oriental Art, Venice (via Ritsumeikan University) - left panel only
Lyon Collection - an okubi-e by Toyokuni I of an actor as Ōinosuke Shigeharu designed right sheet, Kunihiro designed left sheet. This diptych commemorates the debut of the play Keisei Setsugekka at the Kado theater in 1830/1. These two artists collaborated on 6 or 7 works of art in the years 1829-30. This is probably the last of these joint ventures. [This information is taken from Osaka Prints by Dean J. Schwaab, p. 147. This is accompanied by a fairly large color illustration.]

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Please note the awesomely gruesome human skull lying on the ground below the edge of the engawa on the left panel. Rising up from it is a ghostly (gray colored) flame, a shinka 神火, the symbol used ordinarily to mark things like an angry ghost of an individual who hasn't passed over into the 'otherworld'.

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Illustrated:

1) in color in Ikeda Bunko, Kamigata yakusha-e shūsei (Collected Kamigata Actor Prints), vol. 2, Osaka, 1998, no 131.

2) in color in Schätze der Kamigata: Japanische Farbholzschnitte aus Osaka 1780-1880, MNHA (Musée national d'histoire et d'art Luxembourg), 2012, p. 187, #395. The accompanying text reads:

"Der Räuber Ishikawa Goemon steht als Pilger verkleidet auf der Veranda des Ishiyama-Tempels am Biwa-See. Um den Hals trägt er ein Bündel mit Holztafeln, di ein Pilger den von ihm besuchten Tempeln stifftet. Zwischen ihm und dem Karpfenhändler Gengoro liegt der Schädel des Konomura Oinosuke."

The Google translation is:

"The robber Ishikawa Goemon stands disguised as a pilgrim on the porch of the Ishiyama Temple on Lake Biwa. Around his neck he carries a bundle of wooden tablets that a pilgrim gives to the temples he visits. Between him and the carp trader Gengoro lies the skull of Konomura Oinosuke."

3) in color in Osaka Prints by Dean J. Schwaab, Rizzoli, 1989, #136, p. 147.
Nakamura Utaemon III (三代目中村歌右衛門) (actor)
Arashi Rikan II (二代目嵐璃寛: 9/1828 - 6/1837) (actor)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Tenmaya Kihei (天満屋喜兵衛) (publisher)