Page:The Surviving Works of Sharaku (1939).djvu/92

, a slight and youngish man who was murdered in the first act, the portrait itself would suggest the malefactor whose evil deeds overtook him to the delight of the spectators at a later stage of the dramatic action of the play.

As a possible argument against our attribution we must mention an undocumented statement in the Edo Shibai Nendaiki which refers to the part of Washizuka Kwandayū as taken by Ōtano Oniji. We have not been able to check the correctness of this statement, but even if it can be proved to be true it would not necessarily mean that Ebizō did not play Kwandayū, for there are several instances in which, because of illness or for some other reason, a rôle was transferred from one actor to another during the run of a performance.

This subject has been more generally admired than any other print by Sharaku and the admiration of it seems to have been as keen in 1794 as it is today.

There are several states which appear to be practically contemporary with the publication of the supposed first edition, and the reprints made with intent to deceive are almost as numerous as the frank copies. Rumpf mentions two variations, the more important of which is the presence or absence of visible teeth in the partially open mouth of the actor; he does not, however, refer to the fact that in some impressions, perhaps about as early as those which may be considered of the standard and presumably first state, there are noticeable differences in the calligraphy of the upper part of the signature.

In this catalogue it seems best to describe, without definite assertion as to all variations, that impression of the supposed first and standard state which is here reproduced and which is identical, line for line, with the impressions of undoubted authenticity in the Art Institute of Chicago and in the Bigelow Collection in the Museum of Fine Arts, as well as with the one from the Mansfield Collection now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art which bears one of those date inscriptions discussed in the preface and under number 2 of the catalogue.

The chief characteristics of the presumably first state here exhibited are: The main part of the costume is printed in a dull red-orange—not lemon yellow. Teeth are visible in the partially open mouth of the actor. The