Shunbaisai Hokuei (春梅斎北英) (artist )
Arashi Rikan II (嵐璃寛) as Karahashi Sakujūrō (唐橋作十郎) - right-hand panel of a diptych - in the play 'Honor, Loyalty, and Filial Piety at the Crossroads'
09/1831
10.25 in x 14.5 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese color woodblock print
Signed: Shunkōsai Hokuei ga
春江斎北英画
Publisher: Honya Seishichi (Marks 123 - seal 25-527)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (complete diptych)
National Museums Scotland - right panel only
Walters Art Museum - this panel
Walters Art Museum - left panel
National Museums of Scotland - left panel - fresh coloring
Hankyu Culture Foundation
Tokyo Fuji Museum of Art - the full diptych
Victoria and Albert Museum - the full diptych This is the right-hand panel of a diptych. It commemorates a performance of the play Chūkō homare no futamichi (忠孝誉二街) at the Kadoza in 1831/9. It had been produced on stage as early as 1792.
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Illustrated:
1) in Ikeda Bunko, Kamigata yakusha-e shūsei (Collected Kamigata Actor Prints), vol. 2, Ikeda Bunko Library, Osaka, 1998, no. 275.
2) in color in Kabuki Theatre Prints by Rosina Buckland, National Museums of Scotland, 2013, p. 26.
"[Daidōji] Gakutarō [from the left-hand panel, not shown here] is a dissolute man who runs riot, causing destruction to property and even killing Seizaemon, a man who offends him. Seizamon's younger brother, Sakujūrō, swears vengeance and disguises himself as a pilgrim. The showdown takes place at Shitennō-ji temple, in the south of Osaka... before a huge statue of Ema, the King of Hell, where Sakujūrō manages to defeat Gakutarō. The red pillars of the building and the back wall bear votive slips (o-fuda) pasted up by worshippers and pilgrims. The four slips with a yellow ground serve as cartouches that carry the actors' names and the roles portrayed." (Ibid.)
3) in color in a small reproduction in Hokuei: Master of Osaka Kabuki Prints by John Fiorillo, Ludion, 2024, cat. 40, page 147. Additional notes identify the names of the blockutters, printers and geisha inscribed on the pilgrim tags or fuda (札).
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In another play with this character in it the role of Karahashi Sakujūrō the description is completely different. This is based on the curatorial files at the Walters Art Museum: "The play "Keisei Ura no Asagin" describes an unsuccessful attempt by a villain named Karahashi, a subject of the Aboshi clan, to steal the clan treasures and install his son as leader. In act 3, Kowari Dennai, a hunter who is a relative of the true heir, is traveling to the Aboshi domains to settle the succession. Arashi Rikan II plays Kowari Dennai."
Honya Seishichi (本屋清七) (publisher)
Arashi Rikan II (二代目嵐璃寛: 9/1828 - 6/1837) (actor)
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)