Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments
height 206 mm × width 183 mm
Utagawa Kunisada (I)
Man with a Wrapped Sunshade over His Shoulder
Japan, Japan, 1836
Provenance
…; purchased from the dealer Hasegawa, Japan, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1994;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1995
Object number: RP-P-1995-281
Credit line: Gift of J.H.W. Goslings, Epse
Copyright: Public domain
Context
This is the right-hand sheet of a triptych composition with Ichikawa Danjuro VII in the role of Umeomaru (centre sheet) and Onoe Kikugoro III as Sakuraomaru (left sheet).2
Matsumoto Koshiro V (1764-1838) acted under this name from 1801 to his death in V/1838.
The artist
Utagawa Kunisada (1786-1865) was a pupil of Utagawa Toyokuni, who dominated the field of kabuki prints until his death. Kunisada's prints of beautiful women, bijinga, were also very successful. Only well after he had established himself as a designer of actor prints did he enter the world of surimono design, becoming the most prolific designer of surimono in the Utagawa tradition. He also used the art-names Ichiyusai, Gototei and Kochoro.
Entry
A man wearing a court-cap, eboshi, and two swords, shouldering a parasol in a cloth wrapper.
The man is the kabuki actor Matsumoto Koshiro V in the role of Matsuomaru in the so-called ‘Carriage Stopping-scene’, Kurumabiki, in the play Sugawara denju tenarai kagami. Koshiro performed this role in Nakamura Theatre in Edo in V/1823 - which would, however, be too early for the type of signature used here. This print must therefore have been issued to commemorate his ‘Once a lifetime’, Isse ichidai, performance of the role at the Nakamura Theatre in XI/1835.3
The ground features the repeated emblem of the Gogawa poetry club. In another, possibly earlier version of the print (see Forrer;4 Markus5), the poetry-block is different, with poems by the latter being identical to his poem on this print.
Two poems by Shomien Fukumoku(?) and Rokudaen [Futaba, earlier Yoshinoya Futaba or Jushoken Futaba, a judge of the Gogawa, later also the owner of a brothel in the New Yoshiwara, ed. 1858].6
Issued by the poets
Signature reading: Kochoro Kunisada ga, with Toshidama rings
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 568
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Utagawa (I) Kunisada, Man with a Wrapped Sunshade over His Shoulder, Japan, 1836', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200382566
(accessed 13 December 2025 17:06:05).