歌川国貞 · 三代豊国 · 役者見立絵
1786–1865 · the great kabuki portraitist of late Edo
擬絵当合 辰
Matsunaga Daizen & Yukihime, from the Kinkakuji act of Gion Sairei Shinkōki
| Artist | Utagawa Kunisada (歌川国貞, 1786–1865), working as Toyokuni III — signed Toyokuni ga (豊国画) within a red toshidama cartouche |
| Series | 擬絵当合 — Nazorae Eto Awase, "Pictures Matched to the Signs of the Zodiac" |
| Sign | 辰 — the Dragon, fifth of the twelve zodiac animals, carried by the gold dragon writhing across Daizen's robe |
| Roles | 松永大膳 Matsunaga Daizen (foreground) · 狩野の雪姫 Kanō no Yukihime, the "Snow Princess" (in the roundel) |
| Play | Gion Sairei Shinkōki (祇園祭礼信仰記, "The Gion Festival Chronicle of Faith"), the celebrated Kinkakuji ("Golden Pavilion") act |
| Date | Kaei 5 (1852) |
| Publisher | Ebisuya Shōshichi (恵比寿屋庄七) |
| Technique | Woodblock print (mokuhanga), nishiki-e — with hand-splashed gofun spray, embossing and burnishing |
| Format | Ōban tate-e (single sheet) — approx. 25 × 36.5 cm (9¾ × 14⅜ in.) |
| Signature & seals | Signed Toyokuni ga (豊国画); red title cartouche 擬絵当合・辰; role cartouches; paired round censor seals and publisher seal in the field at left |
IMPRESSION & COLOURS
A strong, richly detailed impression with the special-printing touches that distinguish this design fully present: the white spray of the cascade is hand-applied gofun (powdered shell-white, splashed without a block); the white collars carry blind embossing (karazuri); and the lacquer-black of the hair and robe is burnished to a sheen. Colours are deep and fresh — the gold dragon embroidery, vermilion florals, plum roundel and waterfall-blues all reading with full intensity.
PAPER
Firm and unbacked, with light, even toning consistent with age — entirely normal for a sheet of the early 1850s. A few small binding holes at the left edge are typical of a print once bound into an album.
Filling the foreground is Matsunaga Daizen, the scheming warlord of the play — heavy-browed, scowling, his great black hair sweeping back, a thick plaited cord crossing his chest. His robe is the centrepiece: a black ground swarming with a gold-embroidered dragon coiling through cloud and flame, set over teal brocade. That dragon is the whole conceit of the sheet — it is how Kunisada attaches the print to its zodiac sign, 辰, the Dragon.
Above, in a lobed plum-coloured roundel, appears Kanō no Yukihime — the "Snow Princess." Her hair is dressed with pale hydrangea-blue blossom ornaments and gold pins, her robe scattered with vermilion and gold florals; in her hand glints a dagger, and her face is set in alarm and defiance. Between and behind the two figures the Kanchō waterfall falls in shimmering columns of blue and white, its foam flicked across the sheet in splashed gofun, while a trailing garland of chrysanthemums runs down beside the title cartouche.
It is a single ōban built like a stage tableau: the brooding villain in close-up, the imperilled heroine framed above as if glimpsed in memory or mirror, and the great cascade where the play's miracle will occur.
The Kinkakuji ("Golden Pavilion") act is the surviving heart of Gion Sairei Shinkōki, a five-act drama written for the puppet theatre in 1757 and adapted for kabuki the following year. The tyrant Matsunaga Daizen — modelled on the historical warlord Matsunaga Hisahide — has seized Kyoto and installed himself at the Golden Pavilion, holding the painter's daughter Yukihime captive. He demands she paint a dragon for him, and that she yield to him; faithful to her imprisoned husband, she refuses.
The drama's great coup de théâtre follows. As Daizen draws his sword before the waterfall, the reflection of a dragon rises shimmering in the cascade — a sign peculiar to the magic blade Kurikaramaru, which had belonged to Yukihime's murdered father. She understands at once that Daizen is his killer. Bound later to a cherry tree, she gathers fallen blossom petals with her feet and draws a mouse, which springs to life and gnaws through her bonds — one of the most beloved miracle scenes on the kabuki stage.
Yukihime is counted among the "three princesses" (sanhime) — with Yaegaki-hime and Toki-hime, the three most coveted and technically demanding onnagata roles in the entire repertoire. To own her image is to own one of the touchstone roles of kabuki.
Nazorae Eto Awase (擬絵当合) is a mitate — a witty visual "comparison" — pairing celebrated kabuki characters with the signs of the zodiac. Each sheet takes one of the twelve animals and finds a role whose costume or story embodies it: here, the Dragon is supplied twice over, by the gold dragon embroidered on Daizen's robe and by the dragon that rises in the play's own waterfall. It is exactly the kind of layered allusion an Edo audience delighted in decoding.
Designed in 1852, the series belongs to the moment when the harshest Tenpō-era restrictions on actor prints had eased and Kunisada returned to large, lavish half-length portraits. These sheets are admired for precisely the qualities seen here — bold close-up drama, sumptuous patterned costume, and the fine carving and special printing that a confident publisher would lavish on a flagship design.
Utagawa Kunisada (1786–1865) was the most successful and prolific ukiyo-e artist of the nineteenth century. A pupil of Toyokuni I, he rose to lead the Utagawa school and to take the name Toyokuni III, the signature used here. Above all he was the supreme portraitist of the kabuki world — on intimate terms with its leading actors, and unrivalled at translating the charged moments of the stage into print.
By 1852 he was in his sixties and at the height of his powers, the dominant designer of actor prints in Edo. Works such as this show why: the command of physiognomy and gesture, the riot of textile pattern, and the alliance with first-rate carvers and printers. His prints are held in the British Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and major collections worldwide.
Shipping: Shipped flat, protected between acid-free tissue and rigid boards, by tracked and insured international post. Ships from Germany.
Guarantee: Original Japanese woodblock print, Kaei 5 (1852). Guaranteed authentic. Full refund if not as described.