![Bandō Shūka I [初代坂東しうか] as the courtesan Takao (高尾)](https://lyoncollection.org/media/lyon_collection/images/1/22020_ca_object_representations_media_110_large.jpg)
Utagawa Kuniyoshi (歌川国芳) (artist 11/15/1797 – 03/05/1861)
Bandō Shūka I [初代坂東しうか] as the courtesan Takao (高尾)
05/16/1847
9.75 in x 14 in (Overall dimensions) color woodblock print
Signed: Ichiyūsai Kuniyoshi ga
一勇斎国芳画
Artistls seal: kiri
Publisher: Enshūya Matabei
(Marks 057 - seal 01-031)
Censors seals: Mera and Murata
Waseda University
Lyon Collection - the complete diptych
National Museums Scotland The majority of traditional Japanese prints can be read by the motifs and writing which they display. A familiarity with kanji enables the viewer to read the signatures and often the names of the actors. Their names of the roles often appear written in katakana characters. Those are the basics, but a knowledge of motifs is important too. Each of these elements gives us the clues that help us to understand these images.
Takao, the female role, is often accompanied by autumn leaves, but there are none here. Yorikane, the male role, is often wearing robes designed with stylized sparrows among bamboo shoots - or they can be found nearby. In the case of this diptych the sparrows and bamboo motif appears on the roles of both the these characters. This is unusual. The fact that Takao is wearing a robe with this motif strengthens the argument that Takao was Yorikane's woman.
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B.W. Robinson was a trailblazer, but not always right -
The courtesan Takao (高尾), played by Iwai Kumesaburō III (岩井粂三郎), being yanked by her hair by her lover Yorikane who is about to slay her - this is the right panel of a diptych.
Ex collection B. W. Robinson.
Robinson identified this actor as Iwai Kumesaburō III, but both Waseda University and the Museums of Scotland say it was Bandō Shūka I.
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This is from a performance at the Nakamura Theater in 5/1847. The play may be Date zensei sakura no iromaku (伊達旭盛桜彩幕), which is one of the plays associated with Meiboku Sendai hagi (伽羅先代萩).
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The Takao/Yorikane plays were actually loosely based on true historical events "...related to the succession disputes within the Date clan in Sendai in the 1660s. The legitimacy of the daimyo Date Tsunamune and his heirs was challenged when it was disclosed that Tsunamune was enamored of the famous courtesan Takao II of the Great Miura bordello (the legend that inspired the kabuki play was a colorful mix of fact and fiction)."
Quoted from: "Wild Boars and Dirty Rats: Kyōka Surimono Celebrating Ichikawa Danjūrō VII as Arajishi Otokonosuke" by John T. Carpenter, Impressions, no. 28, 2006-2007, p. 47.
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Osaka Prints gave this summary of the play Meiboku Sendai Hagi (伽藍先代萩):
"Meiboku sendai hagi (Sandalwood and bush clover of Sendai: 伽羅先代萩) dramatized the intrigues over succession within the Date clan of Sendai during the third quarter of the seventeenth century. It was performed in an alternate sekai ("world" or theatrical setting: 世界), set back in time during the Onin civil war under the Ashikaga shogunate of the fifteenth century (Ashikaga thus becomes a theatrical substitute for the Date clan name). It is a classic play, so popular that during the Edo period it had at least one performance nearly every year since its premiere in 1777. The fictionalized central story involved Lord Ashikaga Yorikane's forays into the pleasure quarter and his murder of the courtesan Takao (高尾). This episode is an amplification of an actual incident in which the twenty-one-year-old clan leader Date Tsunamune became the lover of the Yoshiwara courtesan Takao, causing a scandal that led to his downfall. Another story line involves Nikki Danjô (Yorikane's evil nephew), the orchestrator of a conspiracy to overthrow Yorikane. The intrigue failed, however, and Nikki was slain."
beautiful women (bijin-ga - 美人画) (genre)
Enshūya Matabei (遠州屋又兵衛) (publisher)
Ashikaga Yorikane (足利頼兼) (role)
Bandō Shūka I (初代坂東しうか: from 11/1839 to 11/1854) (actor)
Meiboku Sendai Hagi (伽藍先代萩) (author)