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Ichikawa Yaozō III as Saegi Kurandō.
The coloring and costume design are: kimono, rose; kamishimo, light lilac with white manji pattern and peony medallions with flowers in rose with green stems against a yellow ground; sword hilt blue; tabi yellow.
The records are not complete enough to allow us to determine whether this is a separate part or a disguise adopted by Yoshiiye. It is of interest, however, that the Kabuki Nendaiki mentions Yaozō five times in connection with the performance of Otokoyama O Edo No Ishizue. He is spoken of once in this part, once as the real Yoshiiye, once as the false Yoshiiye, once as Sanekata in the episode Shinobu Koi Susume Iro Toki, and once as having taken part in a shosa or dance interlude. We are fortunate in having prints by Sharaku showing him in all these rôles. The others are numbers 81, 82, 96, and 101.
This is another of the prints that we are able to add to the previously known works of Sharaku. It has a hand-written inscription in calligraphy that we shall soon see again in numbers 94 and 95, and that in the present instance gives the name of the actor with a note that he later called himself Takasuke, a name that he took ten or fifteen years after the date of the production. The three other sheets of the pentaptych of which numbers 94 and 95 form a part, exist with inscriptions in the same hand, but different impressions of them are shown here. Comparison of the calligraphy discussed in connection with the history of numbers 100 and 101 is invited.
Hosoye. Untinted ground. Signed: Sharaku.
The Art Institute of Chicago (Buckingham Collection).
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