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Tanimura Torazō probably in this play and as Tomita Sukedayū.
Below the publisher’s mark and presumably written in by hand is a character apparently to be read as the word Toku, Special.
Ihara attributes this print to the rôle of Washizuka Hachiheiji in Koinyōbō Somewake Tazuna. Certainly comparison with number 15 shows similarities of costume and the presence in both of three visible teeth. The hair arrangement, however, seems different and as no other hosoye appears to be connected with that play we place the subject here with the further word of warning that the banzuke illustration of Torazō as Sukedayū fails to give positive evidence for this identification.
This print, like some others concerned with the production whose scenes as recorded by Sharaku we now are listing, looks as though it would fit into the composition of a triptych, and since a number of those that have survived exist only in one, or at most two impressions, it is not unreasonable to suppose that others may have been completely lost.
The only known impression of this one was at one time in the Vever Collection and was reproduced in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 325, from which we have rephotographed it as Rumpf did for his number 67, and as others have done. The original now is in the Matsukata Collection. The coloring of the costume has not been described except that the outer robe is said to be black.
Hosoye. Yellow ground. Signed: Tōshūsai Sharaku.
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