Toshusai Sharaku (act. 1794-95)

Osagawa Tsuneyo II as Kojima, the wife of Bingo Saburo (right panel) Ichikawa Komazo III as Nitta Yoshisada impersonated as a gardener by Nitta's retainer Oyamada Taro Takaie (center panel) Iwai Hanshiro IV as Chihaya, the younger sister of the Shinto priest Kenko (left panel)

Details

Toshusai Sharaku (act. 1794-95)
Osagawa Tsuneyo II as Kojima, the wife of Bingo Saburo (right panel)

Ichikawa Komazo III as Nitta Yoshisada impersonated as a gardener by Nitta's retainer Oyamada Taro Takaie (center panel)

Iwai Hanshiro IV as Chihaya, the younger sister of the Shinto priest Kenko (left panel)
Woodcut triptych of three actors in a scene from the fourth tokiwazu episode known as Kagurazuki iwai no iroginu in the kabuki play Matsu wa misao onna Kusunoki (Steadfast as a pine tree is the woman of the Kusunoki clan) performed at the Kawarazaki Theater in the eleventh month of Kansei 6 (1794), each panel signed Toshusai Sharaku ga, sealed kiwame (certified), and with seal of the publisher Tsutaya Juzaburo--fine impressions, fading, small tear to lower left corner of center sheet
hosoban: 12 1/8 x 5½in. (30.8 x 14cm.) each (3)

Provenance

Unknown Japanese private collection using three seals on the verso of the triptych, tora (tiger), the hiragana character ka and one unread seal

Théodore Duret (1838-1927)

Charles Edouard Haviland (1839-1921), sold Paris, Collection Ch. Haviland (Première Vente) Estampes Japonaises des Ecoles Classiques et de quelques Maîtres de l'Ukiyoyé, November 1922, no. 256

Henri Vever (1854-1943), sold Sotheby's, London, Highly Important Japanese Prints, Illustrated Books and Drawings, from the Henri Vever Collection: Part 1, 26 March 1974, no. 261

Literature

C. Vignier and T. Inada, Kiyonaga Buncho Sharaku Estampes Japonaises tirées des collections de . . . et exposées au Musée des Arts Décoratifs en Janvier 1911, exh. cat. (Geneva: Minkoff Reprint, 1973), pl. LXXIX.

Julius Kurth, Sharaku, translated by Sadamura Tadashi and Gamo Junjiro (Tokyo: The Adachi Institute of Woodcut Prints, 1994), additional plates 128-30.

Jack Hillier, Japanese Prints & Drawings from the Vever Collection, vol. 2 (London and New York: Philip Wilson Publishers for Sotheby Parke Bernet and Rizzoli International, 1976), no. 616.

Exhibited

Paris, Musée des Art Décoratifs, "Kiyonaga Buncho Sharaku Estampes Japonaises tirées des collections de MM. Bing . . . Camondo . . . Haviland . . . Javal . . . Koechlin . . . Le Véel . . . Maroni . . . Rouart . . . Stoclet . . . H. Vever," 1911.1

Lot Essay

Jack Hillier, in his book on the Vever Collection prints, calls this triptych "an outstanding rarity," as so few impressions are known. Other than this one, the left panel exists only in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The text of the kabuki play the triptych illustrates was not preserved, but the drama concerns the conflict between the Taira and Minamoto clans in the medieval period.

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