• Arashi Rikan II as Ushiwaka Saburō (牛若三郎) performing in a <i>mitate</i> - the title cartouche reads: 見立  牛若三郎  嵐璃寛
Arashi Rikan II as Ushiwaka Saburō (牛若三郎) performing in a <i>mitate</i> - the title cartouche reads: 見立  牛若三郎  嵐璃寛
Arashi Rikan II as Ushiwaka Saburō (牛若三郎) performing in a <i>mitate</i> - the title cartouche reads: 見立  牛若三郎  嵐璃寛

Utagawa Sadamasu (歌川貞升) (artist )

Arashi Rikan II as Ushiwaka Saburō (牛若三郎) performing in a mitate - the title cartouche reads: 見立 牛若三郎 嵐璃寛

Print


01/1835
10 in x 14.25 in (Overall dimensions) Japanese woodblock print
Signed: Gochōtei Sadamasu
五蝶亭貞升画
Publisher: Tenmaya Kihei
(Marks 536 - seal 21-193)
A copy of the full tetraptych in the Lyon Collection
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg
Hankyu Culture Foundation
The Philadelphia Museum of Art - the full tetraptych Osakaprints.com wrote of the prints from this series: "We have not verified the kabuki play or legend that inspired this design. The ideograms for mitate are written at the top of each cartouche, indicating imaginary performances (actors who had not actually played the particular roles together in a stage production of the story)."

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Ushiwaka (牛若), the name of the young Yoshitsune, means 'young bull' or calf. Ushi (牛) is bull, waka is young.

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This is the second panel from the right of a four panel piece.

There is a complete set of these prints in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

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The full tetraptych is illustrated in:

1) in color in Ikeda Bunko, Kamigata yakusha-e shūsei (Collected Kamigata Actor Prints), vol. 3, Ikeda Bunko Library, Osaka 2001, no. 111.

2) in Utagawa Sadamasu: Distinguished Osaka Print Artist by Jan van Doesburg, pages 42-42, 66, 2012.
actor prints (yakusha-e - 役者絵) (genre)
Kyōto-Osaka prints (kamigata-e - 上方絵) (genre)
Tenmaya Kihei (天満屋喜兵衛) (publisher)
mitate-e (見立て絵) (genre)
Arashi Rikan II (二代目嵐璃寛: 9/1828 - 6/1837) (actor)