Signed: Shunkōsai Hokuei ga
春江斎北英画
Publisher: Honya Seishichi (Marks 123 - seal 25-527)
Related links: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (complete diptych); National Museums Scotland - right panel only; Walters Art Museum - this panel; Walters Art Museum - left panel; National Museums of Scotland - left panel - fresh coloring; Hankyu Culture Foundation;
This is the right-hand panel of a diptych. It commemorates a performance of the play Chūkō homare no futamichi (忠孝誉二街) at the Kadoza in 1831/9. It had been produced on stage as early as 1792.
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Illustrated:
1) in Ikeda Bunko, Kamigata yakusha-e shūsei (Collected Kamigata Actor Prints), vol. 2, Ikeda Bunko Library, Osaka, 1998, no. 275.
2) in color in Kabuki Theatre Prints by Rosina Buckland, National Museums of Scotland, 2013, p. 26.
"[Daidōji] Gakutarō [from the left-hand panel, not shown here] is a dissolute man who runs riot, causing destruction to property and even killing Seizaemon, a man who offends him. Seizamon's younger brother, Sakujūrō, swears vengeance and disguises himself as a pilgrim. The showdown takes place at Shitennō-ji temple, in the south of Osaka... before a huge statue of Ema, the King of Hell, where Sakujūrō manages to defeat Gakutarō. The red pillars of the building and the back wall bear votive slips (o-fuda) pasted up by worshippers and pilgrims. The four slips with a yellow ground serve as cartouches that carry the actors' names and the roles portrayed." (Ibid.)