Page:The Surviving Works of Sharaku (1939).djvu/300

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egawa Kikunojō III possibly as Koman in.

In the cartouche below the personal mon of the actor are his house and poetry names Hamamuraya and Rokō.

The serious doubt of the identification given above is due to the fact that in the version of the Koman-Gengobei story which was put on for the production whose scenes we have been listing, Koman was transformed from Sangobei’s wife into a geisha and is said to have appeared throughout the play in geisha costume; whereas the costume represented in the print is that of a married woman of the middle class and therefore would be correct for Koman in the earlier version. The other possible identifications, however, have equally forceful objections that can be made to them. In different sections of the same production Kikunojō appeared as O-Hisa, a maid servant, and in an unidentified rôle which may possibly be recorded in the print that follows. For neither of these parts is the costume correct. If we go back to the plays put on at the Miyako-za in the eleventh month of 1794 under the general title of we find the actor playing three parts—Hanazono Gozen, a lady of the nobility, who is not recorded to have appeared in any part of the production in disguise, the tea-house waitress O-Hama, and Yamato Manzai in a shosagoto. Clearly none of these gives the clue. The only remaining possibility is the rôle of O-Sono in a production of the fourth month of 1795, and it is highly unlikely that one aiban would have appeared alone three months after the last of the nine others and at a date later than that at which all the evidence we have accumulated shows that Sharaku ceased to design prints.

In the picture the actor wears an outer kimono of moss green with a black collar and a black obi in which is a floral pattern in black. The under kimono is violet and has below it an under garment of rose with a white collar. The comb is in soft yellow and the covering of the tonsure is violet.

There are two impressions in America. The one of these that we exhibit