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Koshuya Restaurant: The Role of Takeda Katsuyori, from the series Famous Restaurants of the Eastern Capital

Koshuya Restaurant: The Role of Takeda Katsuyori, from the series Famous Restaurants of the Eastern Capital

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Hiroshige, Utagawa and Utagawa Kunisada

Published in 1852 and 1853, the fifty-print series Famous Restaurants of the Eastern Capital combines large bust portraits of famous kabuki actors by Kunisada with small insets of landscape scenes and related objects by Hiroshige. The insets are reminiscent of the countless “pasted and mixed pictures,” or harimaze-e, designed by Hiroshige that often contained elaborate visual and textual puns. The combinations of restaurants in the environs of Edo and actors in specific roles often had rather obscure associations, both humorous and entertaining. This print combines the bust portrait of the actor Ichikawa Danjuro VIII in the role of the historical warrior Takeda Katsuyori (1546–82) from the kabuki drama. This Country’s Twenty-four Paragons of Filial Piety with the Koshuya Restaurant located in the Onarimichi area of Edo. The association between the restaurant and character pairing was based on the fact that the warrior Takeda’s domain was in Koshu (modern-day Yamanashi Prefecture). The two insets by Hiroshige include a busy street scene with the characters for Koshuya written in the sky and a close-up image of a blue-and-white serving dish with whole bonito fish (katsuo).
Artist
Hiroshige, Utagawa and Utagawa Kunisada
(Japanese, 1797-1858) (Japanese, 1786-1864)
Title
Koshuya Restaurant: The Role of Takeda Katsuyori, from the series Famous Restaurants of the Eastern Capital
Date
12/1852
Medium
Color woodcut
Dimensions
14 x 9 3/16 in. Overall
Credit
John H. Van Vleck Endowment Fund purchase
Accession No.
2006.12
Classification
Prints
Geography
Japan

Related

  • Mueller, Laura. "Competition and Collaboration: Japanese Prints of the Utagawa School." Leiden, The Netherlands: Hotei Publishing, 2007. p. 169, no. 153
  • Chazen Museum of Art. "Bulletin 2003-2007." Madison: Chazen Museum of Art, 2010. p. 155

  • Print Tsunami: Japonisme and Paris: Chazen Museum of Art, 7/3/2015–8/23/2015
  • 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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