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Lot Essay
The play is the story of the revenge taken by two sisters, Miyagino and Shinobu (shown here), for their father Matsushita Mikinoshin, who has been murdered by Shiga Daishichi. This character has become a courtesan in order to gain access to the assassin. Other impressions are held in the Spaulding and the Bigelow collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Musée National des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, Paris; and the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
The ground of thick, dark mica is indicative of luxury production by the publisher, Tsutaya Juzaburo, who was the promoter genius behind so many great artists of the late eighteenth century, among them Utamaro, Choki, Kitao Masanobu and Kiyonaga. The seal of a clump of ivy under Mount Fuji in the lower left of this image refers to the publisher’s establishment, Tsutaya, House of the Ivy. Tsutaya composed poetry with other sophisticates in the Yoshiwara Circle under the name Tsuta no Karamaru, Entwined in the Ivy.
Tsutaya’s collaboration with Sharaku took place in ten months in 1794, resulting in twenty-eight actor close-ups of astonishing boldness and invention. They are close-ups in the modern sense, using a raised eyebrow, a furrowed brow, single prop or simple gesture to snap the scene. Debate continues on whether the existence of so few of the actor likenesses is because they were unpopular for their frankness or whether Tsutaya found their production too expensive. A reasonable theory proposed by Asano Shugo is that Tsutaya only released small editions on account of their fine printing, coloring and embellishments in the manner of deluxe commissions of surimono and poetry albums.
The ground of thick, dark mica is indicative of luxury production by the publisher, Tsutaya Juzaburo, who was the promoter genius behind so many great artists of the late eighteenth century, among them Utamaro, Choki, Kitao Masanobu and Kiyonaga. The seal of a clump of ivy under Mount Fuji in the lower left of this image refers to the publisher’s establishment, Tsutaya, House of the Ivy. Tsutaya composed poetry with other sophisticates in the Yoshiwara Circle under the name Tsuta no Karamaru, Entwined in the Ivy.
Tsutaya’s collaboration with Sharaku took place in ten months in 1794, resulting in twenty-eight actor close-ups of astonishing boldness and invention. They are close-ups in the modern sense, using a raised eyebrow, a furrowed brow, single prop or simple gesture to snap the scene. Debate continues on whether the existence of so few of the actor likenesses is because they were unpopular for their frankness or whether Tsutaya found their production too expensive. A reasonable theory proposed by Asano Shugo is that Tsutaya only released small editions on account of their fine printing, coloring and embellishments in the manner of deluxe commissions of surimono and poetry albums.