Object data
nishikie, with metallic pigments and tsuyazuri
height 196 mm × width 179 mm
Utagawa Toyokuni (I)
The Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Danjûrô VI
Japan, Japan, 1825
Provenance
…; purchased from the dealer Hasegawa, Japan, by J.H.W. Goslings (1943-2011), Epse, near Deventer, 1992;1 by whom donated to the museum, 1995
Object number: RP-P-1995-294
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 VI wearing the chestnut-brown clothes and hair ornaments identified with the main role in the play Shibaraku.
Danjuro VI, known as ‘Small Eye’, Kodama, Approved by Sansho VII, Rokudaime Kodama Danjuro - kiwame shichidaime Sansho, with seal: Yau, from un untitled series on The Danjuro Family Tradition of Kabuki Actors.
Ichikawa Danjuro VI (1778-99), the son of Ichikawa Danjuro V, first acted under the name Ichikawa Ebizo IV. He acted under the name Danjuro from XI/1791 to V/1799.
The reprint edition with various modifications is in the collection of the National Museum of Ethnology, Leiden (1353-1452).
One poem by Tanehiko [Ryutei Tanehiko, 1783-1842, one of the greatest novelists of his day, also used the name Yanagi no Kazenari when writing kyoka poetry].2
The poem is a haiku reading:
His face is made-up like the crimson Winter plum, his nose sticking out like a six-petalled blossom.
Issued by the Danjuro Fan Club in 1825
Signature reading: the late ko Toyokuni hitsu
Literature
M. Forrer, Surimono in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Leiden 2013, no. 523
Citation
M. Forrer, 2013, 'Utagawa (I) Toyokuni, The Kabuki Actor Ichikawa Danjûrô VI, Japan, 1825', in Surimono from the Goslings Collection in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.318710
(accessed 27 November 2024 05:40:27).