Page:The Surviving Works of Sharaku (1939).djvu/190

Sharaku-mark.png

chikawa Komazō II as Kameya Chūbei, the hero of the play, and Nakayama Tomisaburō as Umegawa, the heroine.

Number 62 shows Umegawa with Chūbei’s father. Here we have her with Chūbei himself as they go out in the night to begin their flight to the village in which the tragic story ends.

Both outer kimono are violet above rose under garments. The woman’s obi and the man’s sash and collar are black. The umbrella is yellow and there are touches of that color elsewhere.

This is one of the rarest as well as one of the finest of Sharaku’s great series of prints which depict two figures at full length against a ground of mica which in the other subjects is white but here is dark because the action represented took place at night. We can only regret that whatever the cause may have been, there are no more of these superb designs; and it is to be regretted to an almost equal extent that each of the seven subjects which do exist is so excessively rare. Only one other original impression of this print is to be found in all the collections of America, and the only one that has been reproduced hitherto is rephotographed in Rumpf number 31 and elsewhere from the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 331. There are at least two rather good modern reprints.

Ōban. Dark mica ground. Signed: Tōshūsai Sharaku.

Museum of Fine Arts (Spaulding Collection).