102
Nakamura Noshio II as Ono no Komachi, the heroine of beauty and of sorrow, holding a poem-paper, presumably the one to be inscribed with the verses which Ōtomo no Kuronushi tried to show that she had not composed.
This is the left-hand sheet of a triptych, with numbers 103 and 104 in the center and on the right.
There is no impression of the print in America and we have rephotographed from the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 314, as Noguchi did. Rumpf for his number 79 rephotographed from the Catalogue of the Ritchie Sale (London 1911) an impression which was inscribed with the name of the actor. The coloring has not been described.
Hosoye. The background is recorded as untinted. Signed: Sharaku.
103
Sawamura Sōjūrō III as Ōtomo no Kuronushi, a nobleman of the court at which Komachi, who is represented in the preceding print, served, and like her famous as a poet.
In fine impressions of this subject such as the one exhibited, the dominant black of the outer robe is lightened with a superimposed pattern. The under garment bears a design of gray and white lozenges with rosettes of faded violet. The other tones in the composition are rose and yellow.
This is the central sheet of the triptych.
The Vignier-Inada Catalogue describes its impression, number 328, as on yellow ground, but reproduces it in color plate 98 with a background which apparently was untinted and so is like that of the one we exhibit, though slightly more yellowish in tone. In this reproduction the lozenge pattern in the sleeves of the under garment fails to show. The impressions in the Bigelow Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts and in the William
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