This print and the two that precede and follow it form a triptych which we have arranged in the order adopted by Rumpf rather than with the sheets here placed at the left and center transposed, as the Vignier-Inada Catalogue has them.
The curtain is in yellow bamboo with bindings in violet and black. The outer garment of the actor is red; the under one is pink with the butterflies in white. The textile at his waist has stripes of pale blue.
Until lately there were two impressions in America. The one that we reproduce is slightly trimmed but is in quite good condition. The other was reproduced in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 292, as Rumpf number 114, and in the sale catalogue of the Mutiaux Collection from which it passed to the collection of the late H. P. Garland from whose estate a number of prints recently have gone back to Japan.
Hosoye. Background of lowered curtains. Signed: Sharaku.
Museum of Fine Arts (Spaulding Collection).
118
Ichikawa Ebizō IV as Kudō Suketsune, the victim of the revenge accomplished by the brothers shown in the central and left-hand sheets of the triptych.
The curtains are in green and yellow with black and violet trimmings. The robe and hakama of the actor are blue with a pattern of green-leaved thistles in rose. The under kimono likewise is in rose, and the strings of the black hat are green.
This print is in superb condition and the only duplicate of it in America is less brilliant in color. A trimmed impression is reproduced in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 292, as Rumpf number 115, and by Noguchi. Nakata uses another.
Hosoye. Background of lowered curtains. Signed: Sharaku.
The Art Institute of Chicago (Buckingham Collection).
272
