Page:The Surviving Works of Sharaku (1939).djvu/218

Sharaku-mark.png

chikawa Yaozō III as the false Yoshiiye, who is murdered by Abe no Sadatō. After the body had been removed Yaozō made a reappearance in the part of the real Yoshiiye, announcing: “The man you have killed is not I, but one who has been known as Sazanami Tatsugorō, a fisherman. His real name is Gengō Narishige, and he died to save me.”

The outer kimono is violet with patterns in yellow and white and is lined with pale rose. The under kimono is red with a white pattern. The other under garments and the fan are white. The obi is greenish yellow. The sword fittings and the lattice above are yellow against white.

This print may at one time have formed the central part of a triptych, with number 83 on the right and another which has not survived on the left. It is the only known impression and was rephotographed by Rumpf for his number 107 from a Tokyo catalogue.

Hosoye. Yellow ground. Signed: Sharaku.

Metropolitan Museum of Art (Mansfield Collection).

chikawa Ebizō IV as Abe no Sadatō, but not in the same disguise as that in which he appears in the following print, for here he is pretending to be Kamakura no Gondayū Kagenari, an envoy to Yoshiiye. According to the account in the Kabuki Nendaiki, Sadatō seizes this opportunity and tries to kill his host, believing him to be the person shown in the companion piece, number 82. We place this print as the right-hand sheet of a triptych, only two parts of which have survived.

The sleeves of the costume still are in moss green at the top with a pattern in rose and white against the gray-green of the lower portions, but the kamishimo and the trousers have faded and show now mainly as mottled oyster-white. The sword remains in clear rose.