47
Ichikawa Yaozō III as Fuwa Banzayemon and Sakata Hangorō III as Kosodate-no-Kwannon-bō, that is, a priest of Kwannon the Child-protector.
For separate portraits of these two actors in the same rôles see numbers 46 and 50.
A comparison of the way in which the lightning and the cloud designs in the costumes worn by Yaozō are treated in number 46 and in the print now under discussion is of considerable interest. Here he wears a kamishimo printed in orange, two tones of green, strong rose and violet, over a kimono of brown and under kimono of white and what once was light blue. The sword has blue hilt wrappings and yellow mountings, and the scabbards are deep rose, as in number 42. Hangorō stands in a gray robe held by a blue sash; above his waist is seen an under robe which is white with an embossed pattern of now faded light blue.
There are two impressions of this print in America, neither of which we believe to have been reproduced hitherto, as all previous reproductions of the subject can be traced back to two other originals both of which once were in Paris. The one formerly in the Bullier Collection of that city appears as Vignier-Inada Catalogue number 335, Rumpf number 33 where the color is differently described, and as plate 42 of the catalogue of the Matsukata Collection. The other, which once was owned by Pierre Barboutau appears as number 737 in his two-volume catalogue of 1904, in Kurth, Noguchi and Nakata.
Ōban. White mica ground. Signed: Tōshūsai Sharaku.
The Art Institute of Chicago (Buckingham Collection).
150
