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Ichikawa Omezō as Ippei, another yakko or man-servant, who acts as a not too successful guardian for the young son of Yosaku and Shigenoi while they are away.
The outer robe is rose and has a black collar. The band of textile at the waist is in yellow, red-orange and green. The sword-hilt is in green and yellow. The tonsure has been tinted in blue.
Impressions seem to differ in the amount and color—gray or red—of the printing about the eyes; but we believe that there is a misprint in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue and that the one of the two impressions exhibited which was reproduced, was 279 bis instead of 279. The Camondo impression now in the Louvre is reproduced by Benesch and obviously is the same as the one illustrated in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, whereas the one formerly owned by M. Doucet we think now to be in an American collection and to have been one of the five from which the impression here exhibited and reproduced was chosen. Rumpf number 17 rephotographs from the Vignier-Inada Catalogue. The color plates in Noguchi and Ukiyo-ye Taika Shūsei show red about the eyes, but no difference in the blocks is positively discernible and we do not find any reproduced impression in which this printing is entirely omitted.
Ōban. Dark mica ground. Signed: Tōshūsai Sharaku.
Museum of Fine Arts (Spaulding Collection).
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