Ukiyoe Reproductions - actors

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Toshusai Sharaku IIchikawa Ebizo IV probably as Washizuka Kwandayu, the villain of the play. Price A$130 (unframed)) Status New Reproduction Condition Excellent Size 250mm x 385mm Availability For sale

Ever since Sharaku first became famous in the Occident a controversy has raged as to the part in which Ebizo is depicted in this print. For years the role was identified as that of the pompous, cowardly, treacherous, lecherous villain Moronao whose misdeeds gave the faithful forty-seven Ronin something to avenge, and the print was assigned to some indefinitely dated production of CHUSHINGURA. Then, because the costume is not appropriate to the role of Moronao, the actor was said to be playing Kudo Suketsune in a Soga play, a part which he has been found to have taken before and after 1794, but not during the year in which Sharaku's bust-portraits were produced. The next identification called the role that of Sadanoshin, a No player and the father of Shigenoi, the heroine of the piece we now are considering. Contemporary publications refer to Ebizo as Sadanoshin, and in the complete absence of a play-bill showing exactly what other parts he may have taken, the last-mentioned attribution seemed satisfactory until a discovery was made in Boston of play-bills of other productions of the same piece which give pictures of Sadanoshin as slightly built, comparatively young, and in general, a frail looking person with a totally different hair arrangement.

In the print under consideration the hair arrangement is appropriate to the role of a villain of not too exalted station, which is why Moronao and Suketsune first were thought of; and although the actual text of the play in which Ebizo appeared in the month when these bust-portraits were issued is known to us only through outline references, we do know that Washizuka Kwandayu was the arch villain of it, that we have no other portrait which could represent him, and that Ebizo, who was a great character actor, sometimes took as many as four different parts in one production but was especially noted for his representations of the base and treacherous people he loved to portray. Even if the hair arrangement did not combine with the apparent age and build of the character shown by Sharaku to forbid identification of the role as that of Sadanoshin, a slight and youngish man who was murdered in the first act, the portrait itself would suggest the malefactor whose evil deeds overtook him to the delight of the spectators at a later stage of the dramatic action of the play.

As a possible argument against our attribution we must mention an undocumented statement in the Edo Shibai Nendaiki which refers to the part of Washizuka Kwandayu as taken by Otano Oniji. We have not been able to check the correctness of this statement, but even if it can be proved to be true it would not necessarily mean that Ebizo did not play Kwandayu, for there are several instances in which, because of illness or for some other reason, a role was transferred from one actor to another during the run of a performance. This subject has been more generally admired than any other print by Sharaku and the admiration of it seems to have been as keen in 1794 as it is today. There are several states which appear to be practically contemporary with the publication of the supposed first edition, and the reprints made with intent to deceive are almost as numerous as the frank copies. Rumpf mentions two variations, the more important of which is the presence or absence of visible teeth in the partially open mouth of the actor; he does not, however, refer to the fact that in some impressions, perhaps about as early as those which may be considered of the standard and presumably first state, there are noticeable differences in the calligraphy of the upper part of the signature.

In this catalogue it seems best to describe, without definite assertion as to all variations, that impression of the supposed first and standard state which is here reproduced and which is identical, line for line, with the impressions of undoubted authenticity in the Art Institute of Chicago and in the Bigelow Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, as well as with the one from the Mansfield Collection now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which bears one of those date inscriptions discussed in the preface and under number 2 of the catalogue.

The chief characteristics of the presumably first state here exhibited are: The main part of the costume is printed in a dull red-orange-not lemon yellow. Teeth are visible in the partially open mouth of the actor. Thebackground is dark, not white, micaand this background appears in the space formed by the curving over of the actor's top-knot as well as elsewhere. The kamishimo visible at the left shoulder probably was printed in blue in all impressions of this state, though in most cases it shows now, through the action of time or otherwise, either as solidly dull yellow or as a blue that still is in process of completing its change to the other tone. A color block around the eyes appears never to have been used in this subject; but those who have an opportunity to study impressions in different coloring from that of the supposed first state which we have attempted to describe, and which are not so recent as to have been made with the help of photography, are advised to observe the drawing of the hands. In any case the variations in the calligraphy of the signature show that at least one new block was cut, probably very soon after the first appearance of the print and certainly long before the later copies were made.

We have before us reproductions in nineteen different books and catalogues, but in most of them it is impossible to tell which state is represented, especially in the calligraphy; and for this reason we refer only to Rumpf number 16, the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 264, Kurth, Nakata, Noguchi and Utyyo-ye Tail(a Shusei which illustrates the subject in what we consider the proper color.

Henderson H.G. and Ledoux L.V., Sharaku's Japanese Theater Prints, an illustrated guide to his complete work., Dover New York, Reprint, 1984