15
Tanimura Torazō as Washizuka Hachiheiji, a lesser villain and brother of the chief villain of the piece, Washizuka Kwandayū, whose portrait follows.
Beneath the black outer garment is a kimono which now can only be described as of faded straw color. The cuff and the lacings of the sword hilt are in green. The tonsure is pale blue. The color block about the eyes was printed in red.
The authors of the Vignier-Inada Catalogue call attention to the fact that while in the impression they reproduce, number 281, the actor is dressed in a salmon colored robe, they exhibit also, as 281 bis, one in which the robe is printed in green and in which the color block around the eyes is omitted. Of course the omission of a block generally indicates a hurried and later printing; and it has been suggested that the apparent demand for a second edition of so many of these bust-portraits on dark mica was motivated by the Government edict against the further issuance of prints on mica grounds. Such a law would be sure to stimulate the sale of those that recently had been issued, and demand from customers naturally would induce the publisher to hurry his printer and get a fresh supply on hand. However, the collector who inscribed so many prints, as he did this one, with the date of the ninth month of 1794, often seems to have been so fortunate as to find early impressions. In the present instance he wrote down the name of the actor as well as the date.
Only three examples of this subject were found in America and the one of these that was chosen was reproduced in 1909 by Arthur Morrison in his catalogue of that exhibition of the Fine Art Society in London which contained so many exceptionally fine prints by Sharaku. The impression reproduced in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 281, has been rephotographed as Rumpf number 15, and by Noguchi. Another in the first state which now is in Chicago is reproduced by Kurth and Nakata. Still a third appears in the Matsukata Catalogue; but we do not find any reproduction of the recorded state in which the block about the eyes was omitted.
Ōban. Dark mica ground. Signed: Tōshūsai Sharaku.
Museum of Fine Arts (Spaulding Collection).
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