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Ichikawa Yaozō III as Soga no Jūrō Sukenari, one of the brothers who died nobly in the flower of young manhood to avenge their father, and whose graves may still be seen side by side near beautiful Lake Hakone. The loyalty and bravery with which these two young men carried out what the customs of the twelfth century made them believe to be their duty, has endeared them to many and has made the various plays in which their story is enshrined among the most perennially popular subjects of the Kabuki stage. The costume of Soga no Jūrō traditionally indicates the rôle through its design of those delightful birds which are called chidori by the Japanese, and by us “sanderlings.”
We place the Soga no Jūrō somewhat doubtfully as the left-hand sheet of the triptych, following in this respect the arrangement of Rumpf rather than that adopted by the Vignier-Inada Catalogue.
The print is in poor condition, but as we are attempting to describe even those colors that in their present state have little or no resemblance to what they once were, we will say that although now we can see little but varying tones of yellow, the kimono seems once to have been mainly in rose and violet.
The impression we exhibit is the only one in America and the existence of any other is doubtful. It has been reproduced in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 292, and as Rumpf number 113. It was last described in the catalogue of the Mutiaux Sale.
Hosoye. Background of lowered curtains. Signed: Sharaku.
Ledoux Collection.
117
Ichikawa Danjūrō VI as Soga no Gorō Tokimune. In this print we see the other of the two boys who accomplished the vendetta described under the preceding number. Soga no Gorō usually is represented in prints of this period with a design of butterflies in his costume.
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