79
Again we have a portrait of Iwai Hanshirō IV, but now disguised as a peasant girl. It is probable that the rôle is that of Sakurai, as in numbers 75 and 78, but this may be one of the disguises of Chihaya who is portrayed in number 70. Hanshirō played both parts and the available records throw no light on which of the two is represented here.
Here his outer kimono is in stripes of brick red and yellow with fine orange lines. The black collar is coated with lacquer. The obi and under collar are rose with white reserve. The under garment is deep rose, the head cloth is violet, now somewhat faded, and the comb is white with yellow teeth.
This is the first to be catalogued here of the series of bust-portraits on yellow grounds which Sharaku began to issue about the time when the edict against mica ground prints went into effect. Upholders of the legend to which reference was made in our introduction, call attention to the tameness and lack of exaggeration in these prints as compared with the bust-portraits on dark mica grounds with which Sharaku has conquered posterity, even if he did not captivate his contemporaries. On all of the yellow-ground bust-portraits the house names and poetry names of the actors are given in cartouches with the appropriate personal mon above, and in this case Hanshirō is described as Yamatoya Tozaku.
The subject now under discussion is the only one of the set not known to the compilers of the Vignier-Inada Catalogue and the only previous reproduction of it is rephotographed as Rumpf number 49 from a Japanese periodical. There is no other impression in America.
Aiban. Yellow ground. Signed: Sharaku.
The Art Institute of Chicago (Buckingham Collection).
202
