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Iwai Hanshirō IV as Chihaya, the younger sister of Kaneyoshi and a loyalist, here disguised as an assistant in the palace gardens.
This print and the next two represent a scene from the jōruri episode Kagurazuki Iwai No Iroginu. They form a triptych and are the first in which Sharaku has used any decorative accessories, such as branches or curtains, in the background.
The colors in the print have faded and changed with time, but the outer kimono once was purple below an over-mantle of white and bore a design of yellow iris. The obi is yellow with medallions in black. The under kimono now is a dull rose.
Hanshirō must have been especially admired in this performance, or, perhaps, was expected to be, for we have five portraits of him in it by Sharaku and a very notable one by Toyokuni.
There are two impressions in America. Another is reproduced in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 291, by Rumpf number 96 and elsewhere.
Hosoye. Untinted ground with decoration of maple leaves. Signed Tōshūsai Sharaku.
Museum of Fine Arts (Bigelow Collection).
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Ichikawa Komazō II as the loyalist general Nitta Yoshisada disguised as a court gardener.
There are no impressions in America of the middle and right-hand sheets of this triptych, and we have been obliged to rephotograph the print now being discussed from the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 291, as
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