![Onoe Kikugorō III (尾上菊五郎) as Shizuka Gozen (静御前) on the right and Nakamura Utaemon III (中村歌右衛門) as Kitsune Tadanobu (狐忠信) from the play <i>Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura</i> [義経千本桜]](https://woodblockprints.org/media/lyon_collection/images/5/92856_ca_object_representations_media_547_large.jpg)
Ryūsai Shigeharu (柳斎重春) (artist 1802 – 1852)
Onoe Kikugorō III (尾上菊五郎) as Shizuka Gozen (静御前) on the right and Nakamura Utaemon III (中村歌右衛門) as Kitsune Tadanobu (狐忠信) from the play Yoshitsune Senbon Zakura [義経千本桜]
10/1830
20 in x 15.25 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese color woodblock print
Signed: Gyokuryūtei Shigeharu ga
玉柳亭重春画
Red Shigeharu seal
Publisher: Honya Seishichi
(Marks 123 - seal 25-527)
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Waseda University - left panel
Royal Museums of Art and History, Belgium (via Cultural Japan) -right-hand panel only
Lyon Collection - a closely related diptych by Shigeharu An image of the right panel was used as the illustration of the back of the book jacket of Osaka Prints by Dean J. Schwaab, the 1989 edition. Both prints appear in color on pages 150 and 151. Schwaab wrote: "This pair of bust portraits depicts the only performance in which Utaemon III, Rikan II, and the visiting Edo actor Onoe Kikugorō III... performed together. The design of these framed portraits is quite clever. The faces and robe patterns are contrasted with a simple yellow ground, taking the eye to the border. The border resolves downward as the falling petals carry the eye from clusters of flowers through the merging blues and conventionalized mist to the rippling pool where goldfish hang suspended. The border carries the title of the play, The Thousand Cherries of Yoshitsune, as well as signifying mortality. The borders seem to move while the portraits are still."
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If by "carries the title" Schwaab means to imply that the design of the border is symbolic, then he is correct. If, however, he means this literally, he is mistaken. The cartouches in the upper right of each print give the names of the actors and the roles they are performing. The cartouches in the lower left are the artist's signature and seal. The yellow seal nearby is that of the publisher.
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A glimpse of the sasarindō motif appears along the inner robe of Kitsune Tadanobu.
Mark Griffiths wrote in The Lotus Quest: In Search of the Sacred Flower on page 245: "The personal, rather than clan mon of Minamoto no Yoritomo was the sasarindō, a design in which three flowers of rindō (the Japanese gentian, Gentiana scabra or G. makinoi) sit above three leaves of the shrubby bamboo Sasa. The gentian was characteristic of the damp grassland flora of Southern Japan, while the bamboo was a signature plant of the North. This elegant posy is iconographic code for the shogun: the North is subjugated by the South; the country united under his military authority." We should note that the theme of the play featuring Shizuka and Tadanobu is tangentially related to the Minamoto Yoshitsune story. Yoshitsune was the younger brother and eventual rival of Yoritomo.
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In an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Kyoto: Capital of Artistic Imagination', expected to run from July 24, 2019 to September 20, 2020, is the Met's copy of their print on the right.
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Illustrated in color in Osaka Prints by Dean J. Schwaab, Rizzoli, 1989, pages 150-151, #141.
Honya Seishichi (本屋清七) (publisher)
Onoe Kikugorō III (三代目尾上菊五郎: 11/1815-3/1848) (actor)
Nakamura Utaemon III (三代目中村歌右衛門) (actor)
Shizuka gozen (静御前) (role)
Minamoto no Yoshitsune (源義経) (role)