Toyohara Kunichika (豊原国周) (artist 1835 – 1900)
Ichikawa Sadanji I (市川左團次) as Akiyama Kii no kami (秋山紀伊守) amidst flames from the play The Kōshū War Strategy and the Takeda Clan Preparing for Battle
05/1894
27.5 in x 14 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese color woodblock print
Signed: Toyohara Kunichika hitsu
(豊原国周筆)
Artist's seal: toshidama in red
Publisher: Akiyama Buemon
(Marks 005 - seal [close to] 30-009)
Date: Meiji 27, 5th month, 1st day
(明治廿七年五月一日)
Japanese Arts Council
Chazen Museum of Art
New York Times review
National Museum of Asian Art Amy Newland wrote in her Time Present and Time Past - Images of a Forgotten Master: Toyohara Kunichika 1835-1900 "The print here of the lord Akiyama Kii no kami is drawn from a scene in a history play surrounding the 16th-century Takeda clan in Kai province... This triptych was produced twelve days prior to the actual performance."
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This triptych is from a series called New Plays of the Meiji-za (Meiji-za shinkyōgen - 明治座新狂言). The play represented here is The Kōshū War Strategy and the Takeda Clan Preparing for Battle (甲州流武田幕張).
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In the New York Times review of the exhibition, Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770-1900 from March 22, 2008 there is not only a full-color reproduction of this triptych, but also these comments by Ken Johnson: "Also extraordinary is Toyohara Kunichika’s dramatic wide-angle picture from 1894 of an actor dressed in a sumptuously patterned costume surrounded by vividly colored flames. With a fierce expression on his face, he poses with extended arms; holding a sword in one hand, he prepares to commit seppuku, or ritual suicide."
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This triptych appears across the front cover of a book entitled On Directing and Dramaturgy: Burning the House by Eugenio Barba.
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Illustrated in color in a book review in Andon 77, November, 2004, fig. 4, p. 78. A detail of the central figure appears on the cover of this publication.
Ichikawa Sadanji I (初代市川左團次: from 1/1865 to August 7, 1904) (actor)
Akiyama Buemon (秋山武右衛門) (publisher)
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Meiji era (明治時代: 1868-1912) (genre)