Kabuki · Ichikawa Danjūrō · Yanone (Kabuki Jūhachiban) ·...

Artist: Ogata Gekkō 尾形月耕 (1859–1920) Title: Shibai 芝居 (Kabuki Theatre) Series: Gekkō Zuihitsu 月耕随筆 (Gekkō's Miscellany) Technique: Original Japanese woodblock print (nishiki-e) Date: Meiji 27 (1894) Publisher: Takekawa Risaburō 武川利三郎, Tokyo Format: Ōban tate-e; approx. 24*36 cm Signature: Gekkō, with red artist's seal CONDITION Excellent Colors and impression. The paper has minor soiling and an album backing. Please check the images! About the print Gekkō Zuihitsu is one of Ogata Gekkō's best-known series. The title comes from zuihitsu, the Japanese literary genre of loosely connected essays that follow the writer's interest, and the series works the same way: each sheet takes a different subject from history, legend, literature, the stage or daily life. The Tokyo National Museum holds a complete set of 48 sheets. Gekkō was largely self-taught and drew on painting traditions outside ukiyo-e, which gives his work a free, painterly line that sets it apart from the Utagawa-school prints of the same years. This sheet, titled Shibai (Theatre), takes kabuki as its subject. Dealer records describe it as theatregoers watching Ichikawa Danjūrō perform Yanone (The Arrowhead). Yanone belongs to the Kabuki Jūhachiban, the eighteen signature plays of the Ichikawa Danjūrō acting line, and is a showpiece of aragoto, the bold, exaggerated acting style the family made famous. The hero is Soga Gorō, one of the two Soga brothers whose revenge story was a favourite kabuki subject. In 1896 the head of the line was Danjūrō IX, the leading actor of the Meiji stage. Impressions of this design are in the Richard Lieben collection at the MAK in Vienna and in the Waseda University Theatre Museum.

Estimate:£126.91

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