Shunbaisai Hokuei (春梅斎北英) (artist )
Vertical diptych. Top: Nakamura Shikan II (中村芝翫) as Ishikawa Goemon (石川五右衛門). Bottom: Ichikawa Ebizō V (市川海老蔵) as Mashiba Hisayoshi（真柴久よし）from the play The Golden Gate and the Paulownia Crest (Kinmon gosan no kiri 金門五三桐)
03/1834
10 in x 30 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Shunbaisai Hokuei ga 春梅斎北英画
Publisher: Izutsuya Denbei: 井筒屋傳兵衞 (Marks 186 seal on verso: 07-030)
Tokyo Metropolitan Library
Hankyu Culture Foundation - top panel
Hankyu Culture Foundation - bottom panel This print was clearly published as a deluxe edition judging by the liberal use of metallic inks. It commemorates a performance at the Kado Theater in Osaka.
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John Fiorillo wrote: "The first staging of Ishikawa Goemon's exploits took place in the 1680s. A century later, Kinmon gosan no kiri, written by Namiki Gohei I (1747-1808), premiered in 1788 as a five-act drama. It was renamed Sanmon gosan no kiri for its premiere in Edo in 1800. The play recounts the tale of Goemon, a notorious rōnin during the regime of Toyotomi Hideyoshi..."
"The theatrical Goemon morphed into a folk hero. When he was forced to flee from the authorities, he took refuge atop the main gate of the Nanzen Temple in Kyoto. While admiring the splendid hanging cherry blossoms, a hawk flew up to him, holding a torn kimono sleeve in its beak with an inscription written in blood revealing that his murdered Chinese father (Ōinosuke, an alias for Sō Seki; C: Suqing, d. 1525), an envoy of the Hosokawa clan, was involved in a plot sanctioned by the Chinese emperor to overthrow Mashiba Hisayoshi (the historical Toyotomi Hideyoshi). Learning this, Goemon vowed to take revenge against Hisayoshi. The gōsan (five/three) in the play title refers to the five flowers on the three stems above leaves of paulownia tree (kiri), Hideyoshi's version of the kiri crest and for centuries symbolic of imperial and shogunal power."
"This work, Hokuei's only known vertical nishiki-e diptych, represents an uncommon format in Kamigata prints.The configuration is well suited to capturing the visual spectacle in one of kabuki's most colorful scenes in which a magnificent vermillion gate is elevated by a mechanical lift to rise high above the stage."
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Illustrated:
1) in color in Ikeda Bunko, Kamigata yakusha-e shūsei (Collected Kamigata Actor Prints), vol. 2, Osaka, 1998, no 330. It represents a performance of Kinmon Gosan no Kiri at the Naka Theater in Osaka on 3/1834.
2) in color in Hokuei: Master of Osaka Kabuki Prints by John Fiorillo, Ludion, 2024, cat. 156, page 99. It is also illustrated in a small color reproduction on page 179. Fiorillo says there is another copy of this diptych in the British Museum, but it is unillustrated online.
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
Nakamura Shikan II (二代目中村芝翫: 11/1825 - 12/1835) (actor)
Kakemono-e - 掛物絵 (genre)
Izutsuya Denbei (井筒屋伝兵衞) (publisher)
Ichikawa Ebizō V (五代目市川海老蔵: 11/1797 to 10/1800 and 3/1832 to 3/1859) (actor)