Tôshûsai Sharaku (Actif 1794-1795) Ichikawa Ebizo IV, dans le rôle de Takemura Sadanoshin, 1794

Hayashi Tadamasa.
Henri Vever collection. Part I. Sold in our London rooms, 1974, lot 254.

Yoshida No. 19 , Henderson & Ledoux no. 16; V. & I. 1911, No. 264, pl. LXV; Rumpf no. 16; Kurth p. 173. The present print corresponds to State II, i.e. Variant signature line placed high to left, red-brown kimono color-block reduced ca. 3mm at left.

In arguably one of the best and most expressive design by the enigmatic artist Tôshûsai Sharaku who only produced ukiyo-e during a mere 10 months in 1794-1795, the present image depicts the actor Ichikawa Ebizo IV in the rôle of Takemura Sadanoshin, a No character in the play Koinyobo Somewake Tazue, performed at the Kawarazaki-za in the Fifth month, Kansei 6 (1794). Sadanoshin appears here profoundly affected when he is made aware of his daughter's conduct. He is shown half length, turned towards the right. The tragic expression in his eyes is outlined by thick black eyebrows. He is wearing a brick orange kimono against a dark mica ground. The kamishimo on his left shoulder retains most of the blue pigment which turned otherwise yellow in most of the other surviving examples.
As per Teruji Yoshida, the figure here depicted would be Takemura Sadanoshin, the father of Shigenoi, a Nô master servicing the Prince of Yurugi. Henderson and Ledoux had priorily thought, based on documents kept in Boston related to the same play, that the character was the betrayor Washikuza Kandayu. Some also suggested the name of Moronao of the Chushingura story, or even Kudo Suketsune, one of the characters of the Soga brothers drama.

Takemura Sadanoshin lost his job because of the misconduct of his daugther. He decides to commit suicide inside a bronze bell, but before decide to reveal the mystery of the No drama titled Dojoji to his Master. In this drama a female dancer falls in love with a monk. She hides herself beneath a large bell to visit him but when the monks recite their sutra and the bell comes up, she has vanished and only a snake escapes from beneath.

A similar but smaller example is in the Tokyo National Museum and is a registered Important cultural property. Other examples of the prints are in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam (coll.Lieftinck); Boston Museum of Fine Arts; Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum; Charleston, Gibbes Art Gallery; Chicago, Art Institute; Cleveland, Museum of Art; Genoa, Museo d'Arte Orientale Edoardo Chiossone; Honolulu, Academy of Arts; London, British Museum (coll.Morison); Maidstone, Museum and Art Gallery; Minneapolis, Institute of Arts (coll.Gale); New York, Brooklyn Museum; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (three copies including one from the Ledoux collection); Paris, Musée Guimet (coll.Bing);

This first edition features very subtle details. Beside the extremely rare remaining blue pigment on the shoulder piece of the kamishimo, one should notice the various shades of black in the head, mat on the Sakayaki (Tsuyakeshi) and glossy on the side with nikawa.

Ichikawa Ebizo IV (1741-1806) was first called Umemaru, then Matsumoto Kôzô from 1754, then Matsumoto Koshirô III between 1761 and 1770, Ichikawa Danjûrô V from 1770 to 1791, and then Ichikawa Eizô IV from that date. His signing name when writting kyokâ poems is Hanamichi Tsurane. Otherwise siging Baidô, Sanshô, Hakuen and Hogoan, from the house of Naritaya.

Tôshûsai Sharaku

As related by prof. Roger Keyes in his introduction essay published in the catalogue for the Tobu Museum of art exhibition on Sharaku (26 October-10th December 1995): "In 1844, fifty years after Sharaku's prints appeared, Saito Gesshin, a historian in Edo, added a note in his manuscript of biographies of ukiyo-e artist (Ukiyo-e Ruiko) saying that Sharaku was Saito Jurobei, a No theater actor in the service of the Lord of Awa."
"It has been proven that an actor named Saito Jurobei did serve the Lord of Awa and did reside for some time in Edo, but his link with Sharaku is still unproven. Because of this uncertainty, many theories have been developed over the years to find the identity of Sharaku. With such a brief career and little known about him, many theories have been proposed with more or less convincing clues to show that Sharaku was a professional Edo artist, perhaps Hokusai, Toyokuni, Kiyomasa, Utamaro, or even Tsutaya Juzaburo, the publisher."

Nonetheless, as explained by prof Keyes, "we may never know for certain whether or not Sharaku was the No actor Saito Jurobei, but it is an interesting fact that the Lord of Awa was absent from Edo (-hence the No actor unoccupied-) from the 21st day of the fourth month of 1794 through the 2nd day of the fourth month of 1796, exactly the period when Sharaku's surviving work appear".