Page:The Surviving Works of Sharaku (1939).djvu/248

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chikawa Danjūrō VI probably as Arakawa Tarō in some part of the production which included the main play named at the top of the page.

In the cartouche below the personal mon of the actor are his house and poetry names Naritaya and Sanshō.

The colors of the print are red-brown for the outer and green for the inner kimono, with the collars in rose. The face is marked in strong rose-red, and the fan-sticks are yellow.

The attribution given above is based on a description in the Hyōbanki of Danjūrō’s appearance in the rôle and with the hair arrangement shown in the print. This would seem conclusive were it not for a doubt raised by the fact that the not always accurate Kabuki Nendaiki lists the part of Arakawa Tarō in this production as played by Ichikawa Omezō rather than Ichikawa Danjūrō. Quite possibly the actor here represented was succeeded by the other at some time during the run of the play, but it is even more likely that we have here one of the misprints from which the Nendaiki was by no means free.

We exhibit the only impression in America, and this bears a hand-written inscription reading: “Roku-dai-me,” or “the sixth.”

The one reproduced in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 255, appears again as Rumpf number 53, and in Noguchi. Still a third is reproduced by Kurth and Nakata.

Aiban. Yellow ground. Signed: Sharaku.

The Art Institute of Chicago (Buckingham Collection).