Object data
nishikie, with tsuyazuri
height 199 mm × width 184 mm
Utagawa Toyokuni (I)
The Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Danjûrô II
Japan, Japan, 1825
Provenance
…; purchased from the dealer Hotei Japanese Prints, Leiden, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1991;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1991
Object number: RP-P-1991-713
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
Context
For general notes on the series, see RP-P-1995-292.
The artist
Utagawa Toyokuni (1769-1825) was a pupil of Utagawa Toyoharu, who first aspired to a career as a designer of prints of beautiful women, bijinga, and then focused on the world of kabuki theatre. He was one of the very few 18th-century designers who enjoyed success well into the next century.
Entry
The actor Ichikawa Danjuro II as Soga no Goro Tokimune sharpening his arrow, in the play Yanone Goro.
Danjuro II, the Great Hakuen, Approved by Sansho VII, Nidaime Dai Hakuen Danjuro - kiwame shichidaime Sansho, with seal: Yau, from an untitled series on The Danjuro Family Tradition of Kabuki Actors.
Ichikawa Danjuro II (1688-1758), the son of Ichikawa Danjuro I, first acted under the name Ichikawa Kuzo. He acted under the name Danjuro, using that of Hakuen when writing poetry from VII/1704 to X/1735, when he adopted the name Ichikawa Ebizo II.
Here he is seen playing Yanone Goro, a role he first portrayed in I/1729 in the performance of Suehiro eho Soga, staged at the Nakamura Theatre in Edo,2 having already played the role of Soga no Goro fifteen times since 1708. The second Danjuro who used the name Hakuen, Danjuro IV, only performed Yanone Goro once during his life, in 1758.
One poem by Rokujuen [Yadoya no Meshimori, 1753-1830].3
The poem reads:
Hakuen’s performance of Goro is like the turnip-shaped head of an arrow, polished with the water of the Ichikawa river
- probably also suggesting that Hakuen is like ‘the head of the family’, Ichikawa translating literally as ‘the River of the City’.
Issued by the Danjuro Fan Club
Signature reading: the late ko Toyokuni hitsu
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 519
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Utagawa (I) Toyokuni, The Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Danjûrô II, Japan, 1825', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.446723
(accessed 8 October 2024 13:45:40).