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Bandō Hikosaburō III as Sagisaka Sanai.
In most cases we do not call attention to new identifications first stated in this catalogue, but in the present instance we would note that the attribution given above was suggested by Rumpf and then confirmed by the original play-bill which shows the actor in the rôle and with his lantern in his hand.
The outer robe is red-orange with some patterning in faded yellow. The under one is in faded violet. The lips are red.
There are two states of the print in which actual differences in blocks are apparent. Both are listed in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, numbers 265 and 265 bis, and the one of these that did not find reproduction there was reproduced 15 years later in the sale catalogue of the Javal Collection. The differences are most apparent in the lines of the ear. The reproduction in Kurth is clearer than the one in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, later rephotographed by Rumpf for his number 23; and the print we exhibit closely resembles the one Kurth used. It differs from the Javal impression, but we cannot pass on the authenticity of that from a cut—however good—in a sale catalogue. The state we show is again reproduced by Benesch from the Camondo impression in the Louvre. On the other hand no tinting of the tonsure appears in Kurth’s reproduction, though this is visible in the Camondo one, in the one reproduced in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, and in the inscribed one we have chosen for exhibition from the four that are in America.
Ōban. Dark mica ground. Signed: Tōshūsai Sharaku.
Museum of Fine Arts (Spaulding Collection).
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