Page:The Surviving Works of Sharaku (1939).djvu/74

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egawa Tomisaburō II as Yadorigi, the wife of Ōgishi Kurando,—the same rôle as that represented in number 4, and Nakamura Manyo as her maid-servant, Wakakusa.

Tomisaburō on the right wears a kimono that once was blue, over another of pale rose patterned in blue-green. A red under garment shows at the neck and sleeve. Manyo is in blue-green over an under kimono of red and violet. Both have yellow combs and head cloths of faded violet.

As this is the first to be catalogued here of the bust-portraits on dark mica grounds that show two actors instead of one alone, this seems an appropriate place in which to say that only five of these survive and there is nothing to show that any others were designed. All that we have are connected with plays produced in the same month and if the series had pleased the public it is not likely that it would have been so promptly discontinued. By us, however, who live a hundred and fifty years later, at least three of the five two-figure bust-portraits are ranked as among Sharaku’s finest prints, and in this opinion contemporary Japanese critics agree with those of the Occident.

In the impression we have chosen from three in America for exhibition, Tomisaburō’s comb is translucent so that the black hair shows dark behind part of it, whereas those previously reproduced, except for one in the Morrison Catalogue of 1909, do not show this detail—a fact which quite possibly may not be due to a second and less careful printing of the originals themselves, but is worth recording as a guide to future students of Sharaku. The reproduction in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 287, was rephotographed for Rumpf number 28 and by Noguchi; Kurth and Nakata use a different impression. The print we exhibit is slightly trimmed at the bottom, the one in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue shows more of Manyo’s fingers.

Ōban. Dark mica ground. Signed: Tōshūsai Sharaku.

The Art Institute of Chicago (Buckingham Collection).