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Nakamura Konozō as the homeless boatman Kanagawaya no Gon being cursed by Nakajima Wadayemon who is playing the part of Bōdara no Chōzayemon, or Chōzayemon the Dried Codfish.
This is one of Sharaku’s most masterly characterizations, and it is to be regretted that recent findings make it impossible to call the print any longer by the old, felicitous title: A Wrestler Being Cursed by His Manager. The types are the same; but one has grown accustomed to imagining happily what the supposed wrestler had done or failed to do, and now it is necessary to follow thought down strange new alleys that lead to all the possible malefactions of boatmen.
The main part of Wadayemon’s costume is in brick red. Over his shoulders is a material of red and yellow stripes. The textiles below are dull rose and black. Konozō is in a green, gray and white check and is holding a yellow box. The tonsures are in sky blue. In some impressions there is a red band of make-up above the eyes of Wadayemon and a tinting of pink on his ear. The print chosen from four in America lacks this extra coloring but otherwise seemed more satisfactory for exhibition.
Reproductions may be studied in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue, number 286, Rumpf number 27, the Catalogue of Prints in the Louvre, Noguchi, etc.; besides which the subject has been reproduced in color as the frontispiece to Kurth, in the Straus-Negbaur Sale Catalogue, in Ukiyo-ye Taika Shūsei Vol. XIV, number 3 and Nakata color plate 2, but all the reproductions we have found in the books and catalogues listed above and elsewhere appear to be from only three originals, and that one of the much rephotographed three which is exhibited and again reproduced here is the one that first was illustrated in the Vignier-Inada Catalogue.
Ōban. Dark mica ground. Signed: Tōshūsai Sharaku.
Ledoux Collection.
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