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Actors Iwai Kumesaburo as Ohan and Ichikawa Yaozo III as Choemon, from an untitled series of actors in nagaban format

Actors Iwai Kumesaburo as Ohan and Ichikawa Yaozo III as Choemon, from an untitled series of actors in nagaban format

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Utagawa Toyokuni

This print, produced at a rare size, depicts the two principal characters from the popular kabuki play Love Suicide of Ohan and Choemon at the Katsura River. The tragic story follows the historical incident of the double suicide by drowning of the doomed lovers Obiya Choemon, a thirty-eight-year-old silk merchant in Kyoto, and Ohan, his fourteen-year-old neighbor. The incident occurred in 1761 and quickly captured the public’s imagination. The woman being carried on the back of the man, the willow tree, and the river all can be traced to standard illustrations of the famous Akutagawa episode from the tenth-century classic Tales of Ise. They support a visual mitate, or allusion, to the episode when the poet Ariwara no Narihira elopes with the future empress Fujiwara no Takaiko. The composition provides an excellent example of how established visual imagery was appropriated by later artists and reinterpreted for contemporary subjects, providing the viewer with layered meanings and references.
Artist
Utagawa Toyokuni
(Japanese, 1769 - 1825)
Title
Actors Iwai Kumesaburo as Ohan and Ichikawa Yaozo III as Choemon, from an untitled series of actors in nagaban format
Date
ca. 1800
Medium
Color woodcut
Dimensions
525 x 235 mm Image
Credit
Gift of Linda and John Comstock
Accession No.
2003.48.11
Classification
Prints
Geography
Japan

Related

  • Mueller, Laura. "Competition and Collaboration: Japanese Prints of the Utagawa School." Leiden, The Netherlands: Hotei Publishing, 2007. p. 101, no. 65

  • Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770-1900: Chazen Museum of Art, 11/2/2009–11/26/2009
  • Utagawa: Masters of the Japanese Print, 1770-1900 : Chazen Museum of Art, 3/21/2008–6/15/2008
  • Competition and Collaboration: Japanese Prints of the Utagawa School: Chazen Museum of Art, 11/3/2007–1/6/2008

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